


As dark a night as many

by cervolina



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Intimacy, Lots of dialogue, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Season/Series 03, Romantic Tension, Violence in Later Chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 01:03:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6634747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cervolina/pseuds/cervolina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One year after the fall, Will and Hannibal still haven't unravelled the nature of their relationship, even thought they have settled into a new quiet life together in Europe. When introducing himself as Will's husband at the opera, Hannibal opens a way into dangerous territory that might unveil their disguise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. As good a day as any

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work for this amazing fandom and I hope you like it. :)  
> English is not my first language, so I apologise in advance for any grammar or spelling mistakes, for this work is not beta-d.  
> I'm happy about any comments and kudos!

**Chapter 1**

**As good a day as any**

 

A storming applause from the audience filled the silence that had expanded all over the theater hall after the end of the first act. A noise which ruggedly awakened Will from the dozing state he’d fallen into after the first 15 minutes of the opera. Hannibal, who was sitting by his left side, had probably noticed that, but had preferred not to disturb him. Or he hadn’t noticed, because the music had utterly captured him like any other time when listening to one of his favorite operas.

On Hannibals request they had chosen to visit the premiere of a new interpretation of “Turandot” to celebrate the first anniversary of their ‘rebirth’, as they both called it. One year after their conjoint fall into the ocean the waves had carried them into the sweet pleasures of social festivities again. This was a place still foreign to Will, whilst Hannibal excelled among the high society guests and flourished in their conversations. Will didn’t fail to notice that his companion’s knowledge about the discussed subject often exceeded the one of his conversational partners, but of course he would never boast about that, because it would be incredibly rude. (“Remember Will, the best conversationalist is the one that makes others think they figured things out by themselves when actually he told them!”)

Of course they still had to be careful when sojourning in crowded places, for the FBI was still looking for them. But here on the ‘old continent’, as Hannibal called it, they could move around almost freely without the fear of being recognized.  Nobody here had heard about the fugitive ‘Murder Husbands’, the label under which Freddie Lounds had made them famous, and their infamous crimes of murder and cannibalism. For the people here they were only friendly foreigners, just like many others who came and left again some while later, leaving nothing but fleeting memories, but no faces to recall. They never stayed at one place for long anyway. On and on they went, hiding, lurking, and always on the hunt.

This evening however, they didn’t intend to start bloody business. Today it was all about the enjoyment of music and celebrating one spectacular year of survival.

When the curtain on stage was drawn and all the doors of the theater hall swung open to release the audience into the foyer for a drink during the intermission, Hannibal gently placed a hand on Will’s arm, signaling him to wait for some more minutes until the floors were less crowded. While Hannibal flicked through the brochure with one eyebrow rose, Will let himself sink back into the soft fabric of the red upholstery of the seats and closed his eyes again, trying to recall anything he could remember about the plot of the first act.

Eventually he became aware of the fact that everything he knew about this opera were things Hannibal had told him on their way here. Turandot is the princess of China who is looking for an eligible candidate to become her husband, but she declares to marry only the very person who is able to solve all the three riddles she asks them. Every man that fails this test will get executed. Finally the prince Kalaf manages to solve all her riddles, but still she refuses to marry him for that would insult her pride tremendously. However Kalaf allows her to retract her promise to marry him, when she in return is able to work out his name until the next dawn. The rest of the plot Will couldn’t remember. He decided to ask Hannibal again before the next act began.

When the theater hall was almost empty, Hannibal and Will arose at the same moment and joined the rest of the crowd in the foyer. It was a huge room with a high ceiling, painted over and over with all kinds of baroque décor in different colors. In the centre of the ceiling hung a heavy silver chandelier, which was swaying slightly from side to side due to the oscillations caused by the people wandering around. Will wondered if anyone else noticed that. It didn’t look very safe.

 Hannibal led him to a small round table near the bar from where they had a good view over the room but still could stay hidden from public views if necessary.

Looking at Hannibal, Will could detect a small smile on his face, cracking his mask of professionalism for a moment.

“Will, what do you think about some champagne? At least we’ve got something to celebrate!”

Will smiled back at him and nodded. “I think we can indulge in that for once”

Well, that wasn’t entirely true, as Hannibal never missed an opportunity to open a bottle of champagne, even when there was no cause for celebration, but Will came to like the taste of it and therefore he didn’t mind this small luxury at all.

Hannibal walked over to the bar to get the bottle and two glasses for them, when two young men approached their table. They were whispering to each other and for a second Will feared they had recognized him, but it turned out they only were hesitant to ask whether they could join them at the table, for there was no free one anywhere else in the room. Will invited them over politely, surely Hannibal wouldn’t mind.

“Thank you very much!” the taller one of them replied, “a shame they have so few tables when there’s actually so much space in here.”

He had dark hair and eyes and a narrow face and Will noticed that his nose was slightly crooked, so it looked as if he sniffed at something when he was smiling.

The other one was about Wills height, but more sturdy in his appearance, though it did make him look rather muscular than fat. His eyes were of a dark green and his hair was hazelnut brown. He had a gentle face but his expressions showed concern as well as some insecurity.

When Hannibal still hadn’t returned some minutes later, Will decided to move forward and introduce himself.

“Steven Elnias is my name, by the way.”

Hannibal had chosen this name for him as a fake identity for their time on the run. Elnias was the Lithuanian word for ‘stag’, which was pretty apposite in his opinion, while the first name Steven had been a spontaneous idea. It was exchangeable and average, nobody ever remembers a Steven. Hannibal’s fake name was Nicolai Elnias. They had agreed on sharing the same family name, so they could always be either relatives or husbands, depending on the country they visited.

“Oh, what a pleasure! I’m Mark Falkner and this is Leonard.” the dark haired one replied.

“I see.”, Will said “You are Germans, aren’t you?”

“Austrians”, Mark corrected “but I have to admit you couldn’t tell from the names alone.”

“So, Steven, are you a local?”, Leonard asked “You must understand, this is our first time in England.”

“No, in fact I am…” Will started to explain, but suddenly was interrupted by Hannibal appearing by his side, the bottle of champagne in his hand.

“Ah”, a smile appeared on Marks face “I see your companion is back. I am Mark, Mark Falkner, and this is Leonard, we are tourists from Austria. Steven kindly let us join you two at this table. So who are you?”

“He’s my…” Will began.

“Husband.”, Hannibal continued without hesitation, while shaking hands with both Mark and Leonard. “Nicolai Elnias, pleasure to meet you!”

 For a moment Will had trouble controlling his facial expression. Hannibal had never mentioned this right the first time they met someone new. Most of the time there was no need to explain their relationship, because people actually very rarely asked and even if they did, them both usually were able to elegantly change the topic without having to answer the previous question.

Will glanced briefly at Hannibal, trying to subliminally express his confusion, but he didn’t even look at him.

Meanwhile Mark and Leonard had exchanged promising glances, both were now smiling widely.

“What a wonderful coincidence! As it happens, we are married, too!”, Leonard exclaimed.

The smile slowly faded from Hannibal’s face as he realized what was about to happen: Couple talk.

“For 7 years now in fact”, Mark went on “and we are still happy! Well, most of the time, of course.”

He laughed “But you know what it’s like, right? Everyone has their little problems, but in the end you stay together and that’s what matters.”

Will tried to imagine what those two would say if they knew about the ‘little problems’ he and Hannibal had had with each other in their past. There was no possible way they would still be standing at their table.

“What about you? How long is it for you already?”, Leonard asked.

Will said nothing and looked at Hannibal instead in expectation. He was really curious for his answer, as he was the one who started it. He seriously doubted that Hannibal had thought it all the way through.

But he let nothing show. “Just one year yet.” He simply declared “but of course we’ve known each other for quite a while beforehand.”

“Oh, but that is lovely!”, Leonard replied in delight. “Enjoy it! The first year always is the most magical one! Tell us, how did you get to know each other?”

Will wasn’t sure whether Hannibal had prepared an answer for that, but he now began to seriously feel uncomfortable and felt extremely relieved when in that moment the gong announced the end of the intermission.

“Well, see you later hopefully.” Hannibal said taking Wills arm, dragging him gently away into the crowd, the bottle of champagne still in his other hand.

“Now we didn’t even get the opportunity to drink to our ‘anniversary’”, he murmured to Will cheerfully.

Will still couldn’t bring himself to finding this funny.

When Hannibal discerned the frown on his face he added “don’t worry, we’ll drink it once we got home.”

“That’s not the point.”, Will whispered to him while making his way back to their seats. “Why did you tell them you were my husband?”

Hannibal rose an eyebrow at him “I shouldn’t have said that?”

“No, actually it would have been better if you hadn’t”, Will confirmed, letting himself sink back down onto his chair. “You got us into trouble!”

Hannibal sat down next to him. “You consider a nice conversation trouble?”, he asked wonderingly. “Also this is hardly the first time I pretended to be your husband.”

The word itself gave Will a small sting, as if it was a term of a foreign language, but he still could make out some of its meaning and it frightened him.

“Certainly, yes, but it is the first time you blathered it out right away. We don’t even know these guys! How do we know they aren’t pretending, too, and actually recognized us? A male couple isn’t that prevailing here; we will soon start to be remembered by people! Anyway we actually aren’t really married. There is no need to pretend anything at all.”

Hannibal’s eyes now fixed the curtain, expecting it to rise at any moment, but looking at him Will couldn’t fail to notice a slight trace of disappointment in his features. Or was it sadness maybe? It actually was hard to tell, for there was so rare occasion to find any of these expressions on his face, so Will had no comparison. The past year hadn’t held much disappointment for Hannibal, as he seemed to have found his happiness (or whatever one would call it) in his companionship with Will. They both had settled down into a new life, the full consequence of which still wasn’t utterly clear to either of them. They seized the chances they got, lingered after another opportunity to hunt, adapted, found their way to move around one another, still caught in their own personal dance of not knowing what they actually meant to each other, which had guided their steps since the very beginning. There was no reason to feel disappointed, or sad, or lost. They hadn’t sorted out all of their issues, hadn’t planned forward all of their future, but right at the moment they were quite safe and unconcerned about getting caught. Will suddenly felt he had reacted a bit paranoid.

“I’m sorry, but you see…” he launched into an explanation, but in that moment the curtain rose and Hannibal shushed at him.

 

During the remaining acts of the opera, Will was trapped in his thought, wondering whether to put this issue up for discussion again or simply forget about it. It actually meant nothing, really, but still the feeling remained, that they had to sort it out someday. And today was as good a day as any.

After the opera had finished, Will hurried them both along to leave, reducing the chance of meeting Mark and Leonard again. He really couldn’t risk Hannibal inviting them over for (or as) dinner.

And he actually didn’t even have to bring the topic up again, for it was Hannibal who did it as soon as they both were in their car and out on the highway.

“Will, who am I to you?”, he asked, eyes fixed on the road and both of his hands resting on the steering wheel.

Will looked at him in confusion. This really was a difficult question to which he hadn’t found an answer yet, even if it was bothering him since the beginning of their acquaintanceship.

“You were my enemy once and now you’re my associate.”, he finally said.

Hannibal’s face remained emotionless, but the disenchantment was obvious when he replied: “So that’s it? You hated me and now you’re enduring me? I’m a bit surprised that you are able to classify me so easily after all these years of utter confusion.”

“I’m not ‘enduring’ you!”, Will retorted firmly. “Since once I wanted to destroy you and now I chose to join you, there is a complexity in our relationship for which I haven’t found a appropriate word. The term ‘association’ describes well the obvious and the rest remains in the dark”

_Maybe it’s best if it stays there_ , he added quietly.

“So you don’t want to discuss this then?”, Hannibal asked.

“I don’t think we’ll find a mutual conclusion here and now.”, Will said while watching the world flying by outside the window.  “At least I can’t think of one.”

“A conclusion only emerges from the coalesced opinions of all of the participants in a case. I can share mine with you and it is in your option to share yours with me. If you wish to keep silent on this topic for now, I’m fine with that. But I’m sure you are aware of the fact that if we don’t have this discussion now, we’ll have to have it on another day. Sometime the game is over and all the cards are laid open. For that, today is as good a day as any.”

The last sentence gave Will a slight shiver and once more he felt as if Hannibal was able to read his mind. He regarded the face of his companion in the pale shine of the street lamps, shedding their light down on them as they passed by.

“Let us at least wait until we are home, ok?”, he asked after a while, a hint of unease in his voice.

Hannibal just nodded and they both felt the weight of the unspoken resting heavy on their shoulders as they drove on deeper into the darkness.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Since that moment, years ago, when Will had found Hannibal in the _Uffizi Gallery_ , sitting in front of the _Primavera_ , the unability to explain this man and define him had bothered him, more than Will actually wanted to admit. Back then, he had made such an effort to get closer to the answer. Coming to Palermo to sit in his “Mind Palace/Chapel”, travelling to Lithuania to wander around on the grounds where Hannibal had grown up. He had seen so much there, everytime he looked at him, thought about him, remembered discussions they had, he felt like he was getting closer to the solution, but it always slipped away. Because he was mixing the image of the man who had actually been there with his self-created image of the man, that only existed inside his own head. He was mixing his experiences with his expectations and together they blurred the true picture.

Of course, it was never an easy task to pack all the features and character traits of a person into one proper definition. This wasn’t a problem he faced on Hannibal’s case only. Being often troubled with issues of social anxiety, he never had truly understood every aspect of human behavior, even with ‘normal’ people. But this man, who was so alike himself, who alone was able to truly apprehend what was going on in his mind … At least him he should be able to define.

Over the past year, after their wounds had healed and their new life was organized to a point where one could just take a breath and lean back for one day, Will often had studied the other, just watching him silently while he was drawing or cooking or composing music. Hannibal must have realized that, for Will made no effort in hiding his glances, but he never looked back at him. Maybe he was even comfortable in being observed. In fact he did sometimes act like he was some kind of living and breathing piece of sculptured art.

Will on the other hand had also become aware of being glanced at. Once he’d woken up in the early hours of the morning with Hannibal by his side, just looking at him. He had a book in his hands, but it was only so that he could cover his intentions, because it was opened on a glossary page.

When he had asked Hannibal why he was looking at him, he simply answered: “I just thought you were awake” (which didn’t make the whole thing less creepy) and then just refocused on his book again.

Hannibal had also drawn him once, during their short stop in Paris. They’d visited an old friend of his, who to Wills strong beliefs ended up as their Sunday dinner since he had shown the utmost rudeness of lacking hospitableness (he let them wait for about half an hour and repeatedly brought up blatantly boring topics at dinner table before sending them home early without an explanation or apology). Will had stayed at home for the rest of that evening, while Hannibal had gone out again to (probably) punish their former host for his discourtesy and when he had returned home, Will had fallen asleep on the couch with his coat loosely draped over his shoulders for warmth.

The next morning Will had found the sketch on the table next to him. Hannibal must have been sitting there for hours, for the picture was very detailed and neatly drawn. Somehow Hannibal had been able to make him look graceful in a pose where everyone most certainly looked like some hungover hobo.

They had never talked about this, but Will had felt sort of touched. He suspected that Hannibal had drawn him before, but never mentioned it. The way his facial features and body shape were captured in the sketch was totally realistic. Once more he was amazed about the wide range of talents this man seemed to master.

Today was a night as dark as many they had shared, sitting silently side by side in their living room, just enjoying the simple activities like reading or listening to music.

Will hadn’t dared yet to ask Hannibal to purchase a television, for he’d most certainly block his request immediately. Hannibal Lecter had probably never been in possession of such a profane and philistine thing in his whole life and he wouldn’t start right now, not even to please Will.

Therefore Will just sat quietly by his side, sipping his whiskey (it had taken all his effort to persuade Hannibal to buy one) and watching the flames dancing in the fireplace. Hannibal was reading a book about the Athen schools of philosophy and apparently paid no attention to him.

After a while Will decided to break the silence.

“I thought you wanted to talk about that thing.”, he started.

“What thing?”, Hannibal asked, still deeply absorbed in his book.

“Don’t behave like you don’t know what I’m talking about! I asked you why you claimed to be my husband, you asked me who you were to me. Neither of us has answered any of the questions, so that’s the point where we are stuck right now.”

Hannibal sighed gently, then put the book down onto the sofa next to him and looked at Will, his eyes reflecting the reddish light of the fire.

“You go first.”, he said.

“Fine”, Will began. “So I have to admit that I don’t have an answer to your question. There is nothing that could define you properly.”

“You mean according to the normal standards of morality.”

“No, I don’t mean that. By those you are actually pretty clearly definable, because you break all of them. You are a monster, less than a man. Or more than one. However I cannot rely on these standards when it comes to you.”

“Yes, that’s the most common definition of me, I suppose.”, Hannibal replied, appearing to be lost in his thoughts. “In some way I’ve come to like this image, you see. It gives me something to recognize when I look into the mirror. I’m more than a man. I’ve adopted features of various animals like the lion, the wolf, the eagle, all the hunters. Maybe even the vulture when it comes to my affection towards eating meat. However I think this image of me doesn’t quite do it for you, does it? You want to look deeper, want to see more. So tell me, what do you see?”

“I told you I always saw you in form of the Wendigo. The stagman, you know. The man-eater.”, Will said.

“Yes, I know. You saw me like that, because it personates one of my strongest traits: Cannibalism. But there is more to it than that, of course.”

“Well, you have to admit, it is your most obvious trait of personality. It’s overshadowing everything else, so it is hard to look at the rest of you without being constantly reminded of the monster that is lurking inside you.”

Hannibal shifted his position on the sofa, so that he was facing Will directly.

“You told me the stag had died that night when I left you bleeding in my kitchen in Baltimore. You saw it bleed out. What came after that? What picture of me?”

“The stag never truly died”, Will replied dryly. “I still saw him somewhere in my mind. If he’d truly disappeared I probably would never have come back to you after all. It was him I saw in the chapel in Palermo, where you left me that bloody valentine. It was him I saw when I looked at you through the glass wall of your cell. It was as if he was pushing me towards you. In fact, I haven’t seen him in a while now.”

“So how do you interpret that now?”, Hannibal asked.

Will once more felt reminded of their numerous therapy sessions. Still, after all these years, their positions didn’t seem to have changed. There still was this doctor-patient-relationship , they kept falling back into their old roles.

“Look, I really don’t feel like being psychoanalysed now”, Will addressed the problem. “After all, you haven’t yet answered my question either.”

“The question why I introduced myself as your husband this evening?”

Hannibal looked at him with raised eyebrows and Will returned his stare.

“To be honest”, he finally replied, turning his attention to the fireplace. “I don’t know for sure either. It felt like the simplest explanation for our collective attendance at the opera.”

“You could just have introduced yourself as a friend of mine.”, Will said unconvinced. “Nobody would have asked.”

“Certainly, yes. And considering the conversation that followed I probably should have done that. But I can assure you that I didn’t have in mind a special intention for this claim. All the same, I’m curious why this is such a big deal to you.”

“It’s not, actually”, Will said, searching for words.

Hannibal looked at him in disbelief.

“I was just…surprised, you know”, he explained. “I know we have played these roles before and I didn’t mind back then. Just today, you made it sound like it was no big deal. Maybe that’s why I made it into one.”

Hannibal smiled at him in response. “And at this point we come back to my question: Who am I to you, then? What do you claim me to be?”

Will fell quiet for a moment. His gaze drifted off to the fire. There, between the flames he could see the memory of that evening in Hannibal’s therapy room when they had burned his old files together. When they’d made plans to run away together. Plans that had failed, at first, and somehow worked out by now. He recalled the fire eating up the papers, licking away Hannibal’s fine, curved handwriting and swallowing all the secrets these papers contained. That evening, that action, it wasn’t the deed of the monster, the Wendigo, it was the deed of a man who was ready to let go of all he’d built up over years to run away with another man he …loved? Will still couldn’t say whether Hannibal’s affection towards him could be described as love. It was just the term Bedelia used. To Will, it never totally fulfilled the purpose.

“None of the labels that come to my mind fit you”, he finally said.

“What labels are you thinking of?”

“Well, friend, partner, associate, companion… they are all far too ordinary to define someone like you.” He deliberately skipped to mention the term ‘lover’, for he feared that it was exactly the word Hannibal would have straightly reacted to. Also he probably couldn’t make himself say it without starting to blush.

“That is all that comes to your mind?”, Hannibal asked, digging deeper.

He wanted Will to say it, didn’t he. He wanted to hear him speak out what Bedelia had hinted at when he’d come to her a short time before that evening on the cliff.

But this wasn’t the time to talk about it. Will didn’t feel ready to be confronted with whatever answer Hannibal had prepared for this absolutely inevitable question to come up. Maybe, it was also fear of being asked the same thing by him. Because he had no idea how he was supposed to react. Deep inside his heart he somehow knew the answer. His own answer. But he couldn’t find the words yet to express it.

“That is all”, he confirmed.

_For now._


	2. As dark a night as many

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of this chapter turned out to be way more emotional than originally intended, but I hope you like it that way. :)
> 
> As usual, forgive me my eventual grammar and spelling mistakes. As much as I love writing in English (even more than in my mother language), there are still some difficulties now and then and I have no beta-reader yet. (All offerings are welcome ;) )
> 
> Enjoy!

**Chapter 2**

**As dark a night as many**

 

There had also been times, since their spectacular resurrection from the sea, when the mist of uncertainty that was spread over their relationship slightly cleared. Moments, when no words were spoken, but a whole lot was understood.

One night Will kept in his memory especially. It was just a few days after they had been washed ashore together. They had dragged themselves back to the house on the cliff top. They had cleaned their wounds superficially and Hannibal had sewed them up with a few stitches to prevent further blood loss. After that, they had stayed for some more days, mainly spending their time sleeping and regaining enough strength to leave the place, which they did on the afternoon of the fourth day, because they had assumed that Jack and the FBI must already be dangerously close to locating them by that time.

Hannibal had found them a place to stay for the time needed to heal fully. Compared to his previous residencies it was notably small, nothing more than a kitchen with an adjoined dining room (only containing a table for at most four people), an average sized bathroom and a narrow hallway that led to the only bedroom in the house. Altogether, this wasn’t a place to stay for long and Will wondered why Hannibal had purchased it in the first place. This seemed very unlike him.

Well, actually he wasn’t even sure, if Hannibal owned the house. He just seemed to be able to enter through the front door without having to break in and Will hadn’t dared to question it. It also seemed like a rather disrespectful assumption to believe Hannibal Lecter to seize other people’s houses. He was a cannibal and a murderer, yes, but he did not steal strangers’ property. This just wasn’t his design.

The first problem they had to face on the evening of their arrival was that the heater wasn’t working. This was pretty disadvantageous, because the weather had become unpleasantly raw and chilly and since the house hadn’t been properly heated for years presumably, the cold was conserved in the walls and floors everywhere. Will had thought about making a fire, but there wasn’t a fireplace in the house. After some hours of vain attempts to make the heating system work, Hannibal had agreed to lighting a small fire on the paved space right in front of the entrance. As there wasn’t any firewood near the house, Will had taken a walk to the forest nearby and chopped a basket full of logs.

When he returned, he instantly felt the warmth in the very moment he stood on the threshold of the main door. It was still bitingly cold inside the house, but a thin, almost unrecognizable flow of warmth radiated from their bedroom. Walking towards it, he could smell the heater. It was finally working! Even though it smelled somewhat like burning old socks and the dust layers of years vaporizing into air, it still gave him an instant feeling of home. And this felt great. After all they’ve been through the past days (even years, considering the whole story), this was the feeling he’d missed: Simply coming home. Walking straight through the storm and finding a place of safety where the dust shimmered on the floor and the heater smelled like old socks, but still warmed him up and made him forget the pain.

When entering the bedroom, he could hear the radiator humming faintly and the warmth crawling up his spine gave him a shiver. Hannibal was sitting on the bed with a drawing pad on his knees and took no notice of him. Will set the basket down by the door and approached the radiator, stretching out his clammy hands towards the warmth.

Hannibal lifted his head. “I’ve been able to make it work after all.”

“I see.” Will answered, his look absent and lost in thought.

After a few minutes of utter silence, Hannibal had asked Will to come to bed. No ulterior motives, no innuendo, just the simple request to join him. The invitation seemed so pure and natural, that it made Will suspicious for a moment, but after all he turned around, walked over to the bed and positioned himself next to Hannibal, who then spread out the coverlet over their legs.

There they’d been sitting. Not saying a word, just simply listening to the noise of the radiator and the wind howling around the house. The light shed by the flickering lamp on the nightstand made Will sleepy. His eyelids slowly sank and with the sound of Hannibal sketching beside him, he dozed off.

He had a horribly vivid dream about their fight on the cliff again. He’d lost control over the beast that lurked inside of him. Felt its claws growing out of his hands, heard its growl wresting from the depth of his throat, the coppery taste of blood sticking to his tongue. It was pure hunger, he was a perfect beast. He saw the Dragon dragging Hannibal towards the edge of the cliff; he approached it from behind, breathing heavily, eyes focused on the body in front of him. He saw that Hannibal was looking at him, his gaze piercing trough his shield of wrath and bloodlust. _Please_ , it said.

In that moment Wills eyes snapped open and he realized he was panting loudly in the silence of the room. It was dark now; Hannibal had obviously decided to continue his artwork in the morning and had switched off the lights. Will could hear him breathing next to him. He was awake, for sure. The room was a lot warmer now and with their shared body heat, the bed felt almost cozy.

When his heartbeat had slowed down for a bit, Will sank back into the sheets and tried to fall asleep again. Then he suddenly heard Hannibals voice:

“Does something scare you, Will?”

He changed his position so that he was facing Hannibal, finding him perfectly awake and studying his face.

His first reaction was to say no, but Hannibal would be able to tell that he was lying, so he didn’t even try.

“Yes.” He answered, his throat was dry. “Everything. Everything scares me. We can’t be like this, together I mean. They’ll catch us. I’m sure they are already looking for us. But also at this point there is nothing we can do. And what scares me most is myself. That I’m still here. That I still didn’t try to run away, from you, from all of this. I don’t even think I know myself anymore!”

“Well, this is curious.” Hannibal remarked. “Because I think I know you better than ever right now.”

“No, you don’t!”, Will replied, his eyes filling with tears because of the shock and the dream and everything. “What you see is your favourite version of me. The imago, as you called it. It’s not who I am, it’s who you want me to be. Your design of me.”

“You are not my design, Will!”, Hannibal said sternly. “You are, and have always been, your very pure inner self. As I once told you, I could never predict or shape you, I can only watch you become by yourself. And what you are becoming is my equal.”

“But I’m not…”, Wills voice was cracking “I’m not…” At this point he broke out into sobbing.

It had been too much for him, all of that, the torture and pain of the past week and the bearing of all the years before. And he couldn’t give in to Hannibals’ plans for him. He couldn’t tear down that final wall that would bury the Will Graham he once was underneath its debris forever, he just couldn’t. He’d fought so strong to maintain that thin line between them, the one Hannibal hadn’t been able to cross yet. He couldn’t let him, he’d lose himself.

And as this mill wheel of sorrows spinned round and round in his mind, he suddenly felt Hannibal pulling him into his arms, holding him close to his chest until Wills breathing rhythm steadied again and he stopped shaking.

Everything in Will became silent in that moment. It felt like a warm breeze streaming through his head, softly blowing out all the painful thoughts and leaving him with a feeling of home and safety and the peaceful, fulfilling happiness one only experiences after an extensive, long withheld cry.

Hannibal kept him in his arms for a while after he’d calmed down again. His face close to his own and he was humming a melody into Will’s ear, the title of which he couldn’t recall, but it still sounded familiar to him. When Hannibal noticed that Will was drifting off to sleep again, he pressed a chaste kiss to his forehead and then rolled back to his side of the bed.

It was so natural, so very, very good and Will had craved for something similar to happen again ever since.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Two weeks after that evening at the opera Hannibal and Will took a trip to town again, because Hannibal wanted to pick up some new ties for himself (and for Will, too, maybe). He’d argued that he’d “grown out of the old ones”, which made Will question how it was possible to grow out of a tie, especially as a fully grown-up man, but all the same he was glad to escape their lonesome shelter for a while.

The streets weren’t very crowded that day, for the weather was cold and windy and it had been raining for days, so the people expected more of it to come, which was quite likely. This was England after all. Wandering through the barely frequented streets, observing the products presented in the shop windows felt strangely normal and in a way comfortable for Will. For once he wasn’t feeling watched, he was the one watching. The consumer, not the consumed.

They passed a small bakery that had scones on offer, so Hannibal went in to buy some. Later they were sitting on a low brick wall by the harbor and ate the scones straight out the bag. It was kind of funny watching Hannibal doing that. He, who made a ceremony out of every meal (especially when it contained people). It looked wrong in some way, but it made Will smile at him. And he smiled back.

After that they started their journey through various shops, which sold clothing on a prize that made Will laugh out loud at first, because of its ridiculousness, and then immediately fall silent when he realized that the expression on Hannibal’s face was entirely serious. This man had probably never paid in coins in his whole life or at least he never had to count them. One day Will would have to ask him where all his fortune came from, because there was no way he could have earned this simply by working as a psychiatrist. It could have been an inheritance from his obviously wealthy family, but the fact that it just wasn’t ceasing, even after a year without any fresh income, made Will suspect rather dark things.

When they left after what felt like 10 hours, Will was the proud owner of a new three-piece suit in dark grey and two new ties, one in midnight-blue the other one in wine-red, both matching the suit perfectly. Hannibal himself had tried on an uncountable amount of clothing until he left the shop again in possession of 3 new shirts, various pairs of socks, 2 pairs of shoes (brown and black) and the changed opinion that his old ties might still be quite wearable after all.

On their way back to the car park they stopped at a deli and Hannibal went in to buy some ingredients for dinner. He’d asked Will to come with him, but he politely refused. Thinking that his increasing unease, which was mainly caused by spending way too much time in stores whose owners sniffed at him when he entered, because they apparently could smell that nothing in there was affordable for him, would further intensify by entering a store full of expensive oils and irrecognizable things swimming in them.

Instead he waited next to the store, observing the people walking by and wondering what lives they came from and where they went. He was quite sure that their lives were pretty normal and nobody, who was passing him, chatting and laughing, had ever experienced something alike to what he’d experienced, but however, the thought that he could have been one of them, instead of who he was now, didn’t make him feel more comfortable.

Hannibal took his time. Twenty minutes later, Will was about to leave and await him in the car, until he remembered that Hannibal was in possession of the keys to the very same.

A short time later the door of the deli opened and his companion stepped out accompanied by two other men, one of whom Will recognized in an instant: It was Leonard Falkner, who today was wearing a dark green suit, which made him look a bit like a well-dressed goblin.

By his side was another man, who Will reckoned to be about Hannibals’ age. This one was more casually dressed, wearing a dark jeans and a short-sleeved blue polo shirt (despite of the cold weather). He had a pale, but strong face with almost no wrinkles, however his hair was completely hoary and on his arm Will could detect the first traces of age spots.

The three men were chatting and Hannibal nodded towards Will, giving him a signal to join them.

“So, here we have the other one!”, Leonard initiated “Mr. Elnias, so good to see you again!”

Will gave him a slightly forced smile and shook his hand as well as the one of the other man.

“Tristan Winter my name”, this one introduced himself. “Leonard told me about how he met you two. You like the opera?”

The grip of his hand was firm and the way those dark brown eyes studied his face while he spoke, made Will feel inexplicably cold. His look was analytical and judging. Will instantly felt that he didn’t like this man, whereas Hannibal was in his friendly conversation mood.

“Tristan is in charge of the theatre company here.”, he explained.  “We’ve just discussed his recent projects.”

“And I’m very surprised by your husbands’ profound knowledge of performance and theatrical art. This is really a subject for extensive discussion!”, Tristan said. A glance of excitement appeared in his eyes.

“I’m sure my husband and I would be very pleased to have you over for dinner sometime, wouldn’t we, darling?”, Hannibal submitted.

The last word gave Will a tiny start, but, of course, he nodded in agreement. He’d never dare to contradict Hannibal in public; he wouldn’t stand a chance of persuading him anyway.

Tristan smiled brightly at Hannibal. “Certainly, whenever you prefer.”

“How about the upcoming Saturday evening? Would that be a convenient time for you?”, Hannibal continued, ignoring the side glance Will gave him.

“That would be perfect! I’m really looking forward to it!” Tristan agreed enthusiastically and shook Hannibals’ hand. “So long then! Have a good rest of the week! You, too, my friend!”, he said, facing Will and shaking his hand as well.

Then he and Leonard walked away, still chatting. Leonards’ face wore that deeply satisfied smirk of someone who’d just made a match between two people.

On their remaining way to the car park, Will and Hannibal didn’t share a word, though Hannibal probably could tell from the frown on Wills face that he didn’t agree with the appointment they’d just made.

Once they were sitting in the car, Will broke the silence.

“I don’t like what you’re doing.”

Hannibal looked at him interrogatively “I’m afraid you need to be more precise.”

Will turned his head to look him straight in the eye.

“All of this … socializing. You can’t just invite someone over for dinner!”

“Give me one rational reason why I can’t do that.” Hannibal replied, emphasizing the word ‘can’t’.

Wills mien darkened. “You know why! It’s getting too dangerous! We are still on the FBI’s Most Wanted list!”

“Honestly, Will!”, Hannibal said, cocking his head in disbelief. “Did he look like someone to you, who checks the FBI’s Most Wanted list every day for any faces he might know? Most people have never even once in their lifetime taken a look at that list, especially not those who live outside of the United States. Seriously, nobody takes notice of you as long as you don’t appear on the news regularly. And I can assure you, our case isn’t nearly as commonly known here as it is overseas.”

Will turned his face towards the window again. “However”, he said “one must be careful.”

“We are.”, Hannibal assured him. “Believe me, I’ve found myself in situations far more close to being unmasked. Not least by you. So don’t be concerned about this little acquaintanceship I’ve found us. We can’t spend all of our future life in worry about being caught. If it happens, then there is nothing we can do anyway.”

That last part didn’t convince Will in the slightest to give up his worry, but for the moment there was nothing more to say about it.

“Anything else?”, Hannibal asked.

“Do not call me ‘darling’ again!”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

On the mentioned Saturday, Hannibal went shopping for groceries again, whereas Will stayed at home. As there basically wasn’t anything else to do, he already started setting the table and selected his outfit for the evening, finally deciding for his new suit and the wine-red tie.

When Hannibal returned, he threw an approving glance at Wills appearance and smiled.

“It looks very nice on you, indeed.”, he said. “My looks will be fading next to yours.”

Will smiled back in response to the compliment.

“I’ve already set the table.”

“That’s very kind of you.” Hannibal replied. “I guess I’ll start cooking right away.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and didn’t leave it until a quarter to eight, when he entered the dining room, balancing a large plate of fruits in one hand and a soup tureen in the other. Will instantly rushed towards him to take the precious porcelain bowl.

“Thank you for that. Now, would you be so kind as to bring in the rest of the food whilst I go upstairs and change clothes?”, Hannibal asked.

Will nodded and went into the kitchen.

Hannibal had prepared a generous range of high quality dishes. Fruits and a spiced tomato soup as a starter and as the main course roasted lamb, filled with various exotic herbs, the names of which were unfamiliar to Will for the most part. With the lamb he’d also prepared potatoes, steamed vegetables and a dark brown sauce. For dessert there was Crème brûlée (the one of Hannibals’ recipes that Will loved the most).

At eight o’clock sharp the doorbell rang and Hannibal hurried down the stairs to answer the door. He led their guest into the dining room and half way through the hallway they were already deep into conversation.

Will drew up his friendly face and greeted Tristan with a handshake. Once again he was surprised at the firmness of his grip.

After some more minutes of small-talk, the three of them sat down at the table and Hannibal served the first course. Naturally, Tristan was greatly impressed by Hannibals’ cooking skills and complimented the dish effusively.

Hannibal poured white wine for all three of them and he and Tristan talked about modern theatre, arts and literature while Will mostly kept silent, nodding and smiling now and then to demonstrate attention.

Hannibal noticed that Wills eyes were fixed on Tristan most of the time, but he didn’t address it.

When Hannibal was serving the main course, Tristan remarked: “As much as I like the taste of this excellent wine, I really need to be careful about drinking, as I still have to drive home later. So, could you maybe get me a glass of water, please?”

“Certainly.”, Hannibal replied. “Steven, would you be so kind?”

Will arose from his chair and disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a glass of water in his hand.

“Thank you!” Tristan drank it down very fastly, the spicy soup seemed to have made him thirsty.

When Will had sat down again, Hannibal and their guest continued their discussion until suddenly Tristan clung to the table with both of his hands, his eyes in a daze.

“Damn, that wine really is… I suddenly…feel like…”

Then his eyeballs rolled inwards, he tilted forwards and with a loud bang his head fell onto his plate.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger-alert! :P Thank you all for reading that far!
> 
> Have you heard about the “Fannibals love Netflix” event taking place on Twitter on Tuesday, the 3th of May? With the hashtag #FannibalsLoveNetflix you can tweet to Netflix, asking them to take up the show for a fourth season. Here’s more information for you: http://the-winnowing-wind.tumblr.com/post/143589546929/netflix-trend-event 
> 
> Let’s do this together, my fellow Fannibals. Give it a try!


	3. To scatter and regather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay of this chapter. Sometimes I tend to forget that there is also a real life that needs to be organised. ;)

 

**Chapter 3**

**To scatter and regather**

For a moment the room lay in dead silence. Tristan’s head was resting unconsciously amidst the remains of his potatoes and vegetables. The fork had slipped out of his hand and its prongs were now pointed towards his left eye. A thin stream of blood was dripping out of a laceration on his forehead, from where his head had hit the knife that had been propped up against the edge of his plate, his blood mixing with the dark sauce.

Hannibal was gazing at Will in confusion, his mouth slightly agape, not being able to explain what had happened.

Will looked back at him, unimpressed, and continued eating.

“Did you drug him?”, Hannibal asked after another minute, sounding more surprised than angry.

“Yes, I did.”, Will promptly admitted.

“Why?”

Will stood up and went to where Tristan’s body was leant limp against the table; Hannibal’s eyes followed him curiously. Will lifted Tristan’s head and propped up his torso against the back of his chair, steadying him with his elbow to prevent him from gliding down. Then his fingers wandered to the inner pocket of Tristan’s jacket and he pulled out a small black microphone and the cable to which it was connected. This was plugged into another device, Will found in one of his trouser pockets. He placed all the things on the table in front of him.

“He spied on us.”, Hannibal concluded from this view, his voice still very calm.

Will nodded.

“How did you know?”

“I caught a glimpse of the cable at one moment when he was gesticulating while talking. I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected something like that from the very moment he’d entered the dining room. He was far too interested in making you talk and certainly very disappointed in me being so quiet all the time. He needed both of our voices on the tape.”

Hannibal reached for the microphone and the connected recording device, observing it carefully. It was a digital recording, of course. Nobody used actual tapes anymore today and this wasn’t some silly James Bond movie.

“So?”, Will asked, while Hannibal was still occupied with inspecting the recorder. “What are we gonna do now?”

Hannibal put the device down, then he stood and went over to stand next to Will, suddenly looking dangerous. Will could detect a spark of disappointment in his glance. He could tell that Hannibal had trusted Tristan, after all he’d been so polite.

There was another moment of silence. Then Hannibal abruptly reached for Tristan’s knife, but in the same moment Will grabbed his own and Hannibal instantaneously felt a cool blade touching the skin at his throat.

“You won’t kill him! We will get him out of here and you will let him live. I want no massacre here!”

Will spoke in dead-earnest, his eyes were fixed on Hannibal’s face with a cold stare. Hannibal let out a long exhale and then turned his head to look at Will. His eyes were bitter with sorrow and disenchantment.

“I’m still not worthy of your trust, I see.”, he said calmly and lowered the knife, removing it from Tristan’s throat. Will kept his eyes on him, his own knife still gently touching Hannibal’s throat while the other took a step back from the table. Only then Will pulled back his arm and carefully put the knife down.

They were standing there, not saying a word, but it felt for both of them as if their precious, just recently repaired teacup was dangerously close to breaking apart again. This wasn’t just a matter of trust. This was about all the things unsaid, all those questions still unanswered that had grown like ivy around them over all the years. It was the final realization that the only thing that was still prevalent between them was their constant mistrust towards each other. However, a relationship like theirs wasn’t built on trust, it was built on the simple fact that without each other none of them could breathe and therefore no event, however painful, could ever make them choose separate ways again. They were Siamese, their actions completely synchronous. And since separation was no option, they had to collect the shards of the teacup again, whenever it broke, and they had to fix it together once more. To scatter and regather, over and over again.

Finally Hannibal stirred and went into the kitchen, leaving Will behind mildly baffled.

“Where are you going?”, Will shouted after him.

Instead of giving an answer, Hannibal returned shortly afterwards with his medical aid kit under his arm. Will watched him kneeling down next to Tristan, who still hung passed-out in his chair, and selecting a syringe from his collection. In quest of the right substance for injection, he riled through the bag and finally took out a small brown-glassed bottle containing an anesthetic.

“I’m merely putting him to sleep properly so we can transport him more easily.”, Hannibal replied in response to Will’s frown.

He concentrated on filling the syringe to its full volume, then he gently tapped onto Tristan’s exposed forearm until he could detect a suitable vein and with one confident prick he injected the whole load into his bloodstream. The moment the needle pierced through his skin, Tristan gave a small twitch, but immediately fell motionless again. Hannibal finally stood up and looked at Will as if awaiting further instructions.

“Alright.”, Will sighed “Let’s get him out of here!”

They lifted Tristan up, Hannibal carrying his torso, Will taking his feet and together they moved him out of the dining room, through the hallway, down the small stairs and into the car boot.

“I’ll drive”, Will suggested and Hannibal got into the front passenger seat without expressing any objections, which was another unmistakable sign that the situation was serious.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Will’s eyes were fixed on the street while they drove, the sun already setting between the soft hills that shaped the landscape of the English south. Those last warm sunrays inked the meadows in a golden colour and gave the whole scenery a touch of preciousness. Like the remembrance of a summer, that was yet to come but at the same time had already passed. Will wondered how many more summers were there to come for the two of them. Here, where no-one seemed to know them and where someone had still been able to identify them. Here, there were no more summers waiting for them. After this, they had to leave, of that Will was sure. Of course, one day this had to happen. A life like theirs wasn’t meant to be lived in a place like this, at least not for long. Sooner or later they’d always have to leave and find a new momentary home somewhere else.

In some nights, when he’d awoken from one of his nightmares, which luckily became less and less in time, he’d let his imagination run free to explore different possibilities about what course their future life might take. Ideally, they’d find themselves a real home one day. A little peaceful island (at least peaceful until they arrived there) with a house of their own and maybe a dog or two (or three, or ten) – a place where they could watch the summers come and pass, where they could finally find the answers to all their questions. But this was just a silly dream, and Will wasn’t even sure he wanted to end up like this; even if he didn’t like to admit it: He missed the darkness a bit, the thrill of a kill, the smell of fresh blood hovering in the air around him. The last time he’d been close to this was in that night on the cliff. After that he’d never taken part in any of Hannibal’s hunts again (which had become quite rare recently). Not because he didn’t enjoy it, but because he feared losing control over himself again. The beast inside him still had to be tamed, and they couldn’t afford risking their safety just because he couldn’t keep his temper.

The night climbed over the hills and overshadowed the land as they drove, on and on. After more than half an hour Will pulled over and brought the car to a halt on a small track between the cornfields. Hannibal flashed him a look of inquiry.

“Let’s get rid of him here. The next town isn’t far away; he can reach it within 20 minutes by foot. For how much longer will he be unconscious?”

“Several hours at least.”, Hannibal answered. “I administered a strong dose. For certain he won’t awake until midday.” His voice sounded almost clinical, lacking any emotion that would help Will identify his thoughts.

“Would you help me get him out of the trunk again?”, Will asked, trying to sound as polite as possible, because he somehow felt he owed Hannibal an apology for threatening him at the dinner table.

As an answer Hannibal simply stepped out of the car and opened the boot lid, then stood there motionless, waiting for Will to join him. With conjoint effort they heaved the limp body out of the car and gently put him down by the side of the lane, carefully leaning his torso against a tree stump. Hannibal had superficially cleaned the wound on his forehead, but the jolting car ride had caused it to tear open again and now the dried blood drew a sticky red line across his face.

They both regarded his slumped down figure for a moment.

“And now?”, Will’s glance wandered to observe Hannibal’s face again.

The muscles at Hannibal’s jaw twitched as he was staring at the body in front of them.

“Let’s drive back home.”, he finally said. Then he got into the car again, this time he took the place behind the steering wheel. Will got in on the opposite side and with a last look at Tristan, they drove off.

Hannibal was deeply hurt. The silence which he used to punish Will for his behavior earlier this evening was thick and cold, as if the air between them had been replaced by solid ice. Will didn’t dare to say a word, didn’t even dare to apologize. After all he wasn’t actually sorry and Hannibal could tell if he was telling lies.

His knee-jerk reaction to Hannibal’s attempt to kill Tristan had been caused by his still existing instinct to stop the monster this man incarnated and by that avert further damage from humankind. By now this reaction technically wasn’t justified anymore, for he now himself was a monster. However, deep inside he knew that he’d never be able to completely rip out this part of him, this part that he sometimes imagined watching him from behind, whispering in his ear, telling him to stop, to flee, to forget. This part, that had fought the Wendigo in his dreams, over and over again. The counterpart of who he was now, which was the beast the Wendigo had born, had brought to life and fed with his flesh to mark him as his own. Every single scar his body wore was a stigma caused by or through dealing with Hannibal. On good days he sometimes even felt proud of them, because they drew a map of their story. They had healed, just like the two of them had overcome the constant urge of causing each other pain and had redefined their relationship. At least Will had thought this was the case until this very evening, when the teacup once more was on the verge of shattering.

But he wouldn’t let it break. He just couldn’t afford more scars and they both had done so well over the past months! He would hurry and catch it before it hit the floor. This part of him, that wanted to protect himself from Hannibal: he trusted this part also to fight to protect their teacup. Because he didn’t judge by good or bad anymore. The beasts lingered on either side.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

After another wordless half hour of driving, they finally approached their small cottage again, looking a bit lost as it was immersed in darkness. At least it looked like that from afar.

Out of a sudden, Will froze and he felt fear creeping up his spine, when he discovered the beams of torches dancing over the walls inside and outside the house. They had visitors.

Hannibal noticed it almost at the same moment and abruptly stepped onto the break, causing an almost neck-breaking saccade. It was obvious that he was shocked, too. This meant trouble. Lots and lots of it.

It wasn’t clear whether they were the police or another kind of law enforcement. One thing was certain: they weren’t burglars. What they were looking for wasn’t in the house. Those who they were looking for were watching them through the trees. They had stepped out of the car and sneaked up on them, keeping a safe distance. Helplessly watching as their carefully arranged hiding place got turned upside down before their eyes.

There was no way they could go back. The evidence of their inhabitation was overly present everywhere in the house. There could be no doubt about whom this accommodation belonged to, they had made no effort of removing their fingerprints or DNA. What for? This was their home, not a crime scene; otherwise it would have been arranged beautifully and cleaned impeccably of any evidence. But this used to be the one place where they didn’t have to pretend. Every beast needs a cave to retreat and theirs had recently been occupied by humans who now lit a fire in there and cast out the shadows that had so thoroughly preserved their disguise.

The cottage was inspected by at least seven people in dark uniforms that wandered about the lawn and the small paved yard by the front door. Some of them even wore those white overalls used by the crime scene investigation. There certainly were even more of them inside the house. Four cars were parked on the side of the road that led to the place, police cars.

The men in the uniforms all seemed very busy, so they didn’t become aware of the two men between the trees. And those two observed them, horrified and utterly speechless. Merely minutes elapsing, but lifetimes passing and dying away. Eventually they looked at one another and they exchanged glances, acknowledging mutual agreement. They had to run.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

And therefore they drove. On and on without any clear destination, at least to Will it looked not as if they were heading towards any specific place. Hannibal was driving now, his hands were holding on to the steering wheel in a firm grip that made his knuckles appear whitely on his hands. Apart from that he seemed to be extremely composed considering the fact, that right now they were practically homeless and on the run, having nothing with them but their car and the clothes they were wearing.

When they had gotten into the car, after silently agreeing on the inevitability to leave immediately, Hannibal had murmured something about “staying nearby” and “returning as soon as possible” and Will had refrained from expressing his doubts. Of course Hannibal must be aware that there was no way for them to return to their house in the short term, as the police would certainly keep a close watch over it after finding the proof, that two of the most wanted criminals had been residing there.

He could imagine them ransacking the house, searching through the cupboards and drawers, discovering one by one all of Hannibal’s sketches, his scribbled sheet music, his constantly expanding collection of recipes, Will’s new ties, and in the dumps: the fishing gear he had recently constructed, because he had planned to go fishing again soon.

He thought about how they were inspecting the things, carefully wrapping them up in plastic, labeling and numbering them and then later transporting the items to the forensic laboratory in charge, so they would dispel the last doubts about who they belonged to. In accordance with the rules they would then store them in some cupboard, somewhere in one of the huge basement evidence rooms at the central police station, or even shipping them overseas, so the FBI could take a look at it. Will could imagine Jack’s face, when he was observing the items, his eyes glowing with the triumph of finally being able to track them both down.

When (if) they returned to the house, nothing would be left of what they had built up together in the course of the past year. They’d have to start right from the bottom again.

Will was still deeply lost in thoughts, when Hannibal turned right onto a dirt path that lead to a small wooden hut, that looked as if one day a heavy storm had shook it upside down and then roughly slammed it back to the place where it used to stand. It reminded him of the one in which Dorothy flew to Oz, carried by the cyclone.

Hannibal parked the car directly in front of the entrance door and stepped out, leaving a quite confused Will behind. He went straight over to the front door and inspected the lock, then he took a few steps back and with one rapid movement he fiercely rammed his elbow against the area right above the handle, breaking the lock and pushing the door open. Will was baffled for a moment, he’d never seen Hannibal break into a house before, but it actually looked as if he already had some practice.

Afterwards Hannibal returned to the car and opened the door on Will’s side.

“Are you going to come out there eventually?”, he asked.

Will still didn’t know what to say, but finally he stepped out of the car and followed Hannibal, who had already returned to the house.

Inside it smelled of dust and moist wallpaper that already started getting moldy. The furniture was covered with stained greyish sheets that were gently stirred by the wind blowing through a broken window. There was a fire place across the room and in front of it a mothy couch covered in dark green linen sheets. On the right hand side stood a massive wooden table upon which a broken ashtray had dispersed its contents. There were two wooden chairs, one standing right next to the table, the other leaning against the wall, upside down, one of the legs broken. On the left hand side a staircase led to the upper floor, where Will assumed the bedrooms or at least a room safe from the wind that carried the scent of a coming thunderstorm into the house.

Hannibal observed the interior with obvious disgust, but finally knelt down at the fireplace and began raking through the dry ash with an iron poker he’d found on top of the mantelpiece. Will was watching him motionless. After a while he sat up again and looked at Will.

“We should make use of that, otherwise it will be an uncomfortable night.” He pointed towards the fireplace.

“Why don’t we just sleep in the car?”, Will asked.

“Believe me, you would not want to be outside there when the storm arrives. I have a very strong feeling there is a boisterous weather to come.”

“Then I better go find some fire wood.”

Will strolled around the area surrounding the house, collecting boughs and dried leafs, and he suddenly felt reminded of that night, when he had returned from chopping wood to find the house smelling of warmth and safety. When the pieces of himself regathered in the wholly enwrapping feeling of a newly found home.

Except that this time actually the opposite had happened. They’d lost it. They’d lost their one place of safety and everything within, lost it to those who would use it to track them down and lock them up and separate them once more. They’d had to exchange their precious hiding-place for a shack that was barely able to withstand the first drops of rain, which began to drizzle in that moment.

When Will returned, his arms full of sticks and leafs, trying his best to protect them from the rain, he found Hannibal sitting outside the house on the steps in front of the main door, his glance drifting through the darkness, lost afar. The rain didn’t seem to bother him, even though he must be feeling cold with the sharp wind that howled. It was a stunning view. Hannibal looked like an old king, who’d just returned from a long journey and found his kingdom lying in ruins.

Will approached him slowly, careful not to stir the picture of this somehow tragic figure. When he stood right next to him, he dropped the branches and sat down beside him, their bodies barely touching.

Any sense of time faded as they were sitting there close together, feeling the rain dripping  down on their bodies, but not the wetness; watching the darkness claiming its right to reign over the lands again. The sky was almost black with heavy thunderclouds that threatened to suffocate the world.

After a long time of silence, Will looked at Hannibal and reached out for his hand, gently placing it in his own as he stood up.

“Let’s go inside, shall we?”

Hannibal looked up and nodded. His eyes weary, but a faint smile on his face.

Will picked up the sticks and Hannibal closed the door behind them as they entered the house, their heads full of the storm, which they'd hoped they’d be able to shut out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do you think? I'd love to hear your opinions! <3  
> Also I realised, that I actually promised lots of dialogue in the tags, but in this chapter there was almost none at all. So there will be more in the next chapter. ;)


	4. To fall and crash and shatter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I promised: loooots of dialogue here :) and also some fluff! (finally! :D )  
> There are only two more chapters to come after this and they'll be pretty action-loaded, so in contrast to that, this one is nice and sweet. :)

 

**Chapter 4**

**To fall and crash and shatter**

 

It didn’t even take half an hour for the storm to finally arrive. The walls of the old shack shook with the first thunder roaring through it, followed by the pelting of hailstones on the thin window glass. The wind rocked the trees outside and intensified the noise of the storm. It was all one. Like a huge devastating animal with flashing bright eyes and a thunderous voice, whose claws reached out for whatever stood in its way, guarding his territory and defending it against intruders. Looking for nothing but destruction, at whatever cost.

Will recalled one of the conversations they’d once had upon the topic of the nature of evil and at what point it became equivalent to destruction, or whether it did at all.

_“Evil is just destructive? Storms are evil, if it is that simple.”_

This one felt as if it was.

When back then on the cliff Will had thrown them over the edge, hoping to destroy them both, save them both, he hadn’t considered his action evil, neither destructive. It felt right in that moment, it felt wrong afterwards. The nature of evil, something like a life-time study as it was for him, never seemed to be that simple. If even storms, the most innocent evil things in the world, that took lives in a second and calmed down in another to be replaced by beautiful sunshine,  if even them were highly complex in their nature, then how could anyone imagine human beings, who committed similar deeds of destruction, to be definable by simple categories like ‘good’ and ‘evil’? Nature was raw, and everyone was a beast if the circumstances required it. Will had learned to understand this long ago, even before Hannibal had stepped into his life and made him throw overboard everything he knew about what was widely reckoned as good and evil. That was how he learned to understand him, and accept him as the person he was. His psychiatrist and his friend, his worst enemy, _The monster of Florence_ , the heart-broken man, the dangerous, lovesick cannibal. All in one.

When the hail grew stronger, crackling relentlessly against the window panes, Hannibal blocked up the windows with a broken cupboard door he’d taken from a room upstairs, in case the glass would break. They lit a fire with the wood that Will had collected. It took a few tries, for the material was wettish, but after some more minutes the first tiny flames were licking at the heap of sticks, growing bigger quickly.

Hannibal was sitting in front of the fireplace, watching satisfied as the flames ate up the dried leaves, one after the other. Warmth radiated throughout the room; it felt almost cosy.

Will, who had been standing by the blocked window until then, went over to join him. He didn’t dare to sit down on that couch in front of the fireplace, as it did truly look as if it would come to life itself at any moment considering all the years that slept in it. In a place like this, godforsaken and lonely, everything seemed to be just asleep, lurking, waiting for an opportunity to get revenge for being of no use to anyone for such a long time. Instead Will slouched down next to Hannibal before the fire, stretching out his hands towards it to take the most of the burning heat.

Hannibal smiled at him. He seemed so much calmer than just a few hours before. Despite all that they had lost today and all the problems that awaited them tomorrow, he seemed to be unworried at the moment. Will observed his face and found a strange expression he’d not often witnessed before. It looked like sentiment, though it most certainly wasn’t as Hannibal had never been the one for sentiment. It was always somehow connected with weakness.

“What are you smiling at?”, he opted to address the matter.

Hannibal looked him in the eyes. _You_ , was the answer Will saw there.

“I’ve always had an affection to fire. Something so gentle, yet so destructive. Its nature is similar to mine. I always thought that if I’d ever find a soul mate, I’d find him in the fire.”

“And did you?”, Will smiled, perceiving the truth in his words, this bond with fire feeling all so familiar to him.

“No.”, he smirked. “The fire is no home for someone like him. He’d step out of it at first instance, shake down the ashes and make a go of his way in the world.”

“Must be a misleading kind of way, if it led to a place like this.”, Will replied in amusement.

“Only if you expect it to end here. Which I don’t.”

“Can we please stop talking in metaphors? I don’t feel mentally up to it right now.”, Will yawned. The spitting fire and the faint sound of the storm outside made him sleepy.

Hannibal chuckled silently at this, but then he turned his attention back to the dancing flames.

“So where are we going to sleep tonight?”

As a response Hannibal pointed at the couch.

“There’s no way I’m going to lay down on that thing. It looks as if you’d catch fleas and lice by simply looking at it”, Will protested.

“If you prefer the floor I will not hinder you from laying down right here. But not matter how desperate our current situation may be, I will certainly not undergo the indignity of sleeping on the floor. Also I took the blanket from our car, so we’ve got something to put between us and the fleas, if that does soothe you.”

Will nodded at him in apology. Hannibal’s declaration had made him suddenly feel a bit like a defiant child on his first camping trip who’d just realized that adventure didn’t actually always equal fun and was therefore reconsidering to abandon his original plan to become a ranger and become a firefighter instead, as those were heroes in possession of scabies-free beds. His childhood had been full of disillusions like this.

Out of the blue, Will’s stomach gave a horribly loud growl.

“Are you hungry?”, Hannibal asked, stating the obvious.

“Well, we haven’t eaten anything since the lamb you served earlier this evening. And I didn’t even eat much of that.”, Will replied.

“Well, if you’d saved your stunt for dessert, we at least would have indulged in a full meal. What a shame that delicious Crème brûlée I’ve prepared will go to waste.”

Will imagined the forensics team inspecting the three small bowls of Crème in the fridge and looking for traces of human meat in them, detecting nothing like that and having to throw it away all the same, simply because it had been found at a crime scene. This must be somewhat disappointing for them, too.

“Maybe I did it before that, because I didn’t want to share dessert with Tristan. After all your Crème brûlée is far too exquisite to be gulped down by someone like him. Traitor, he is!” Will hissed out the last sentence.

Hannibal smiled at that comment. “I agree. He wasn’t worth it. One day we will make good for that dessert, just the two of us.”

Will grinned in slight despair, for a situation like this seemed so entirely out of reach right now.

“Well, I’m afraid there is nothing I can do to calm your stomach at the moment. Tomorrow we can find us something to eat, but for now I can only advice you to feast on your dreams.”

“Is this another kind of metaphor? Or a proverb I don’t know?”, Will asked with a disbelieving frown. “’Cause if it isn’t, then I can only advice you to stop being so damn melodramatic.”

“In some situations you do lack the appreciation of the aesthetics of language, Will.”, Hannibal replied.

“I’m just not in the mood for stupid metaphors.” Will yawned again.

“Yes, you already told me so. Therefore I suggest we continue our discussion tomorrow and go to sleep.”

As Hannibal sat up, Will could hear his bones creaking from being motionless all the time. He straitened himself up and went over to the sofa, turning his glance back to Will.

“I’m going to sleep here.”, he stated and awaited the other’s response.

Will briefly considered the possibility of sleeping in front of the burning out fire on the floor, but it appeared to be a bad idea, not least because he didn’t want to be woken up by mice running over his face in the dark. So instead he followed Hannibal to the couch.

“Well, if there’s some more space for me there, I am prone to join you.”, he said with a smile, trying to imitate Hannibal’s posh talking.

Releasing a short laughter, Hannibal spread the blanket over the whole length of the sofa, not leaving a single spot uncovered. No luck for the lice tonight, Will thought. Which was nonsense of course, because a simple layer of fabric could never keep away those sneaky beasts, but the meticulousness with which Hannibal tried to make it as comfortable for Will as possible (even crumpling his expensive jacket to make them a pillow) was just too adorable.

Without another word they lay down, side by side, still fully dressed, tying Will’s parka over them for a bedspread. The minutes stretched out, while Will was desperately trying to find a comfortable sleeping position without stirring too much and waking Hannibal again who, according to his calm and steady breathing, was already fast asleep. He finally turned to face him, as this was the only position in which he wasn’t in danger of slipping from the couch at any time, and was briefly startled when he looked into Hannibal’s eyes that were still wide open.

Lying like this, their noses almost touching, surprisingly didn’t make Will feel awkward or uncomfortable. It was just … unfamiliar. They had been close before. Emotionally, certainly, as close as one could be. Physically, their closeness had led to pain almost every time, caused by gutting or stabbing; it was always accompanied by blood, their closeness. Touching led to pushing, pushing led to falling. Falling to crashing. And then to shattering. And shattering led to fixing it again. Their precious teacup, littered with countless cracks.  

“Hannibal…”, Will whispered.

“Yes.” Hannibal’s pupils looked utterly black in the pale light of the dying flames.

Will didn’t know how to continue. He hadn’t actually planned to say anything, the words had just escaped him. He put one arm beneath his head for stability and let the other fall into the space between them, abstractedly fidgeting the folds of the blanket.

“I’m sorry that I threatened to kill you.”, he finally muttered.

“Tonight or in general?”, Hannibal asked slightly amused.

Will’s eyes fixed Hannibal’s in a light frown. “Tonight, to begin with.”

“I forgive you.”, Hannibal replied, repeating those fateful words that were still tainted with memories of that bloody night in his old kitchen in Baltimore. Words so gentle, yet so hurtful.

“Thank you.”, Will whispered.

“You know, I didn’t see your attempt to stop me from killing Tristan by pressing a knife to my throat as a serious threat to my life. I’ve so felt blades there so many times that I can barely count them. What hurt far more was the obvious atmosphere of mistrust between us, which I thought we had overcome. We did get along so well in the past year.”

“I’m afraid this mistrust will never go away entirely. It is a part of us, of our relationship. No wonder, considering our past. But I can live with it, it won’t drive me away from you.”, Will said reassuring.

Hannibal gave him a little smile. His hand found its way into Will’s and he gently stroked his thumb over Will’s knuckles.

“I do trust you, Will.” Hannibal conceded, not looking into his eyes, but at their conjoined hands instead. “But I cannot expect you to reciprocate that trust. That would be too much to ask of you for now. Whatever promise I could make, whatever I’m willing to sacrifice for you in the future, cannot outweigh what I’ve done to you in the past, cannot cancel out the multiple times I’ve harmed you. For me it is much more important that you don’t leave me, than that you trust me. I’d rather have you mistrusting me for the rest of my life than not having you at all.”

Will swallowed at this confession, his gaze joining Hannibal’s at their hands.

“I wish I could promise you that one day we could share the same faith in my abilities and your composure, but unlike you, I can’t always keep my promises, so I spare that one for later. Maybe.”

“It’s alright, I don’t expect you to make one and I can be very patient. Better never make a promise than one you can’t keep. I once promised you I’d accompany you in the dark, and I kept my promise. I’ve always been there, waiting for you. And you finally came.”

With that, Hannibal ran his other hand through Will’s hair, gently tugging at a curl on his forehead.

Will raised his eyes, until they were on the same level as Hannibal’s again, earnestness travelling in his glance.

“You had no choice.”, he replied. “The light is not an option for you, Hannibal. Due to what you did, you can never leave the darkness. It was only a matter of time until we were to meet there.”

“But the darkness is vast and one can easily get lost in it. I was lucky that I found you. Otherwise, we’d both just be straying around, walking forever in circles.” Hannibal was whispering, but his words seemed to fill the entire room, living out all its gravity.

_‘I’m glad that you found me, too.’_ , Will was about to say, but then bit it back, because this didn’t seem to be about merging in a final accordance, it was rather about accepting each other, and therefore no apology was needed.

Behind them in the fireplace, the remaining pieces of wood released one ultimate hiss before the flames died out completely and the room lay in utter darkness.

Will could only see the contours of Hannibal’s face in front of the black background, his eyes not being perceivable in the dark. He felt Hannibal’s hand wandering from the back of his head down to his chin and cupping it in his hand, gently stroking his cheek with his thumb.

“Look at us, here we are.”, he heard him whisper.

Something like a stone sat in Will’s throat and his mouth went dry.

“I cannot see a thing.”, he managed to say.

Hannibal chuckled, continuing to caress his cheek. “That doesn’t matter. It’s enough if you can feel.”

The first moment when Hannibal’s lips touched his own, the kiss didn’t last for more than a few seconds. It wasn’t even a kiss actually, more like a breath they started alone and finished together. Will’s mind didn’t work properly, so he couldn’t interpret it in any way; it was far too real and at the same time far too surreal, so his brain failed to categorize how he felt about it. In retrospect, he probably didn’t feel anything, because otherwise everything inside him would have screamed ‘ _No!_ ’ when just a few seconds after they’d parted, he leaned into the space between them for a second try.

This time it lasted longer. Hannibal’s lips felt warm and soft and just so innocuous that they didn’t seem to belong to the same man that had caused him so much pain in the past, and still nowadays, sometimes. Maybe he liked it, because Hannibal’s lips had never hurt him that much. The things he had said had always been wise and insightful and his voice had ever been so calm that Will got lost in it sometimes. It had rather been his hands and his eyes that had caused the trouble; the claws he kept hidden. His fangs were always sharp and his glance was occasionally cruel and cold, but his lips were gentle.

And so kissing him felt easy, relieving. It was like sailing into a haven, sailing home.

Hannibal’s hand was at the back of Wills head again, gently pulling him closer and keeping him near. His grip wasn’t tight, but still strong, as if he feared Will could slip away at any moment. Will’s left hand wandered to Hannibal’s waist and came to rest there, loosely holding on to his shirt, when he slightly parted his lips to deepen the kiss.

It didn’t become heated or passionate in any way. In fact, Will didn’t, not even retrospectively, see anything sexual in it. It was more like taking and giving, back and forth, in turns. Like tidal waves rolling ashore at a coast for a thousand years. Over and over again.

No words were shared between them. The room around them was totally silent, apart from their kissing and the occasional rustling of the blanket-sheet as they tried to get closer to each other.

After a while, Will had completely lost track of the time and was surprised when Hannibal suddenly drew back and gave his forehead an affectionate nudge instead.

“Sleep now, there isn’t much night-time left and I want us to start preparing early tomorrow.” He whispered.

He didn’t say what they were to prepare for, but Will only nodded, though Hannibal probably couldn’t see it in the darkness, and they moved apart a bit, so they both had enough space to finally fall asleep.

“Hannibal…”, Will whispered again after a while.

“Hmm?”, the other replied, already half asleep.

“You know…I’m glad that you found me, too.”, he finally said.

He could feel Hannibal smile into the darkness with his eyes closed.

“Yes, I know.”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Will didn’t notice Hannibal leaving his side during the night, but when he awoke in the morning the space beside him was empty, though still warm when he touched it, so it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since Hannibal had stood up.

Looking around, Will couldn’t detect him anywhere in the room, so he was probably either upstairs or outside. Will sat up, immediately feeling a stinging pain in his back from lying on the not very comfortable couch. His mouth felt sour with that nasty taste of not having brushed his teeth for far too long and his hair stuck damply to his forehead. He was really in need of a shower and a clean bathroom in general, which clearly was too much to hope for in a place like this. Maybe there was some water left in their car, so he could at least rinse out his mouth.

At the car he found Hannibal, focused on a road map spread out over his knees and obviously trying to locate their current position. Will cleared his throat to gain his attention.

“Ehem … morning?”

“Good morning, Will.”, Hannibal replied without looking up.

He wasn’t sure how to interpret that reaction. Apparently Hannibal didn’t want to talk about last night, but his tone also didn’t sound particularly repellent. On the contrary, somehow cheerful even. So Will decided not to worry about it.

“Have you found out where we are?”, he asked.

“I think”, the other began and pointed at the middle of a large green area on the map “or let’s say I hope we are somewhere here, because if not then I honestly haven’t got the faintest idea.”

Will raised his eyebrows. “I thought you knew this place.”

Now Hannibal looked up and shook his head. “No. Why would I know a place like this? A near-derelict shack in the middle of nowhere. Does this look like my design to you, Will?”

Will smiled, like he always did when Hannibal used this term, that had originally belonged to him alone, but still he answered earnestly: “No, it certainly doesn’t, but you seemed so determined on your way here that I assumed you may have kept this place in mind, just in case we had to find a quick shelter one day. You always being so terribly good in planning forward for every possible outcome, I somehow just reckoned that you had considered a situation like this coming up.”

“Of course I have”, Hannibal responded rising to his feet again and approaching Will. “But you can be sure that I never intended for us to end up in a place like this. I haven’t picked out a specific place as a shelter, which in retrospect might have been a bit naïve, but if I had, I wouldn’t have kept it a secret to you. In a situation like our current one, we ought not to keep secrets from each other concerning our safety. That would be incredibly stupid.”

He’d reached Will’s side and now lifted his hand to slightly strike over the one of Will’s hipbones that was nearest to him. In his other hand he still held the road-map. Will watched him doing this for a while, not looking into his eyes, but on the floor in front of him.

Then he said: “So what’s up now? We stay here? Or do you want to head to another place, provided that you know where we go this time?”

“Don’t worry, we won’t stay here for much longer, but I need to clear my mind on that matter and take my time to make a decision about the next steps. I don’t want us to get caught, obviously. So from now on everything needs to be carefully planned.”

“So we stay?”

“Just for one more day, or maybe two. As I said, we need a well thought-out plan and that’s what I’m going to work on now, but of course we also urgently need some provisions and fresh water. So I’m going to lend you the car and you drive to the nearest town and buy us some food. Nothing fancy or easily perishable, but something nutritious that will stay edible for at least 3 days without refrigeration. “

Will looked at him shocked. “I can’t just drive into town and go grocery-shopping! They are looking for us, remember? Our faces are probably all over the news by now!”

Hannibal gently put a hand on one of his shoulders and somehow this instantly calmed him.

“You are not as easy detectable as I am, so I think you will be fine. You can wear sunglasses if that makes you feel more secure, the weather today provides a good excuse for that. Also people never expect wanted criminals to show up right in front of their eyes in a supermarket, so that should make it easy for you. But of course you still need to be very careful. Do you think you can do that?”

With that last words Will could detect a hint of worry in Hannibal’s eyes, but within a moment it was gone and its place was taken over by determination again.

“Yes”, he nodded. “I think I can. We don’t have any choice anyway, do we? Or we’ll starve here.”

Hannibal smirked. “At some point, yes, presumably. But we also need some other things to make our stay here more comfortable. I’ve made you a list.”

He took a folded piece of paper from one of his pockets and handed it to Will. It contained a number of different foods, mostly canned or dried, and other basic household stuff. A smile flit over Will’s face when he read “1 Pomegranate (fresh or none at all)” and “1 pack of napkins”. However hopeless their situation might be, Hannibal still maintained his standards concerning good manners at the table. Because of course he needed to use napkins to eat a fresh pomegranate rather than using none to eat canned macaroni.

“Is that what you call ‘nothing fancy’?”, Will smirked.

“It’s all healthy but still easily storable and not too expensive.”, Hannibal explained defensively.

“Alright, I guess that’s all pretty easy obtainable. I can do that.”

When Will was about to get into the car, Hannibal grabbed one of his wrists to hold him back, cupping his cheek again with his other hand.

“Don’t be long. I’ll wait here. Be very careful and call me if there is anything wrong.” His look was tender and warm, but also a bit worried.

“Sure.”, Will replied.

Then Hannibal let go of him and he got into the car and drove off.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like always, I'm happy about any feedback! :) Reading your comments always makes my day. <3


	5. Through storms and boisterous weather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovelies! Here's the next chapter for you! :)  
> Fascinating how productive I can be writing fics, when I actually have a whole load of exams coming up I should study for instead. ;)
> 
> I have to warn you that there will be angst and some violence in this chapter. Please don't run away! I promise it will get better! ;)

 

**Chapter 5**

**Through storms and boisterous weather**

 

Actually it wasn’t that easy to find the _“_ nearest town _”_. It took Will almost half an hour to escape the small muddy lanes and find a tarred road where he followed the traffic jam, hopefully showing him the way to civilization, which meant supermarkets. As he usually could rely on his sense of direction, which he’d trained during all the years of living far from any city streets out there in the country side, he was optimistic that he’d be able to find the way back later.

The storm had left scars in the landscape. By each side of the road tree stumps, branches and splinted boles stood tattered, ruining the fresh green complexion of spring, making it look as if a huge beast had ripped its claws through the forest and left stripes of devastation behind. The sky had cleared up, the sun was peaking trough the holey cloud cover, clothing the land in pale light.

Nevertheless the wind was still strong, softly rocking the car as it was stuck in a traffic jam on the middle of a bridge. The cars had formed a corridor for the emergency vehicles that were approaching, accompanied by the sound of wailing sirens. Apparently some kind of accident was the cause the traffic jam, so this was going to take a while.

Will turned on the radio, in anticipation of something about the police investigation on their house being reported, but fortunately it wasn’t mentioned at all. Instead the news were all about the destruction caused by the storm and people that had lost parts of their houses or cars by it. The short episodes of the radio magazine were interrupted by a horrible cover version of “We’re not gonna take it”, sung by a boy who seemed to have just failed mastering his vocal change and therefore had decided to smoke the rest of his voice away and become a metal singer. That was the point when Will switched the radio off again. He had much to think about anyhow, music and talking was only distracting.

The memories of the past night were mere fragments; they weren’t visible to him inside his perfectly imaginative mind, since everything had taken place in the darkness. Though Will often wished for the ability to forget certain pictures, this time he didn’t have any and that made an interpretation difficult. What troubled him the most, was that now, afterwards, it wasn’t clear how much of it he had imagined and how much had actually happened. They had been kissing, of that he was sure. They had been exploring each other, held, touched, _felt_ each other. It had felt like falling first, then slowing down, feeling the air around them becoming thicker until softly landing again on both feet in a foreign land, despite the darkness with light galore.

It had felt natural and supernatural at the same time, but he had been well aware and sure of his actions. That exactly was the problem maybe: He didn’t mind and that bothered him a lot. He and Hannibal had become so close to each other during that past year, taking each other’s presence for granted most of the time, continuing their stealthy dance, spinning around each other on orbits that sometimes crossed, but they had never touched like this. At least not physically. Even though this aspect of their relationship was new, of course Will had been thinking about it before. He was quite aware of the fact that Hannibal was in love with him after all. As much as one could call that kind of thing love. Maybe in some way it was, though dangerous, bloody and deadly, still that: devotion of the deepest, most obsessive kind. Love with the gentleness of troubled waters, rocking the sailors to sleep and then shattering the ship on a sharp rock, swallowing the dead bodies afterwards and carrying them ashore safely. Will had seen it once crystal clear, he had understood, he had called it “beautiful”.

However he still couldn’t formulate an appropriate answer to Bedelia’s question.

_“Do you ache for him?”_

Everything ached because of him. Will had experienced a lot of ache caused by Hannibal’s hands. But what he now felt he couldn’t call ache nor pain or love. It was a promise. It said: _I’ll stay, whatever might happen._ And kissing Hannibal had made him feel safe. For once, just once, it hadn’t ached, hadn’t hurt. And this brought a smile to his face.

When he let his gaze capture the landscape, damp from the rain, suddenly in the corner of his eye something stirred amidst the forest. He rapidly turned his head in order to get a better look at it. At first he couldn’t identify the shadow lurking in between the trees, but then it hit him like a slap in the face: strong and big and feathered the Ravenstag raised his head, shaking leaves and soil off his antlers as if he’d just arisen from the ground. His plumage was dirty and felted, dark black interspersed with spots of grey in between. The beast was _aging_. Will couldn’t take his eyes off it, watching mouth agape as it slowly set one hoof on the road, making its way towards the car.

Slightly panicking, Will locked the vehicle from the inside and watched the stag approaching. More than the grey in its feathers, a soft limping made the creature look humble. It actually looked pretty harmless, though his antlers were still fierce and terrifying, tainted with specks of blood at the sharp ends. When it was close, it lowered his head until its mouth almost touched the car window. Will heard it breathing heavily as if it was exhausted after a long run. Their eyes locked. The stag had black eyes, endless, bottomless darkness awaiting him inside. They weren’t cold, they weren’t warm either. It was a sweet pure nothing that filled them, nurtured by all the light of the world streaming into it. It didn’t even blink once and Will was totally trapped in its stare.

A sudden aggressive honking from behind startled Will and the stag instantly vanished. The line of cars in front of him had put itself into motion and the traffic jam thinned out. On his whole way to the city his thoughts were occupied by the strange appearance of the stag. He couldn’t say he’d missed it in any way, but as it once used to roam about in his dreams and nightmares, the familiarity of it did strike him as something wondrous.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Buying the groceries turned out to be a far easier task to complete than he’d assumed. There were so many people in the supermarket that nobody took any notice of the dark haired man loading up his shopping cart with tons of canned vegetables, dried beef and lots of bottled water (and a fresh pomegranate also). He had decided not to wear the sunglasses, for he feared it would only attract unwanted attention.

When he was queuing at the cash desk, trying to school himself to patience as the lady at the head of the queue had a lively discussion with the cashier, he suddenly sensed the presence of something behind him that didn’t belong here.

Even before he heard the low growled snorting he knew it was the stag again. The noises around him faded out, blurring together to form a subliminal whirring in which the paced pawing of the stag’s hooves on the tiled floor sounded like carving into porcelain. Will did neither have the courage nor the strength to turn around. His knees began to weaken; the speeding pounding of his heartbeat falling into rhythm with the stag’s approaching steps. There was nothing here that could protect him now. He couldn’t lock himself in anywhere; he had nothing to defend himself. It was weird, of course, as he knew the stag was only a product of his vivid imagination, but an atmosphere of fear radiated from the creature that gave Will the goosebumps. The moment the wet mouth of the animal stroke the palm of his right hand, Will promptly turned around and almost got a heart-attack when he only found a sturdy middle-aged man standing there, staring at him equally startled.

“’m sorry”, the man murmured, self-consciously crossing his arms behind his back.

It began to dawn on Will that it had apparently been the man’s sweaty hand that had touched him, even though he could have sworn he’d felt the hot breath of the stag on his skin.

Will forced himself to give the man a forgiving nod and turn his attention back to the line in front of him. When it was his turn, he paid in cash and then hurriedly left the store. Loading the goods into the trunk of his car he still couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was being watched, though it didn’t feel like the stag anymore. This time it was a human being.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

On his drive back he constantly kept an eye on the rear-view mirror. He couldn’t help it, even though it made him feel a bit paranoid. There was nobody following him, as he’d expected, but something inside his mind kept whispering to him, so silent and low that he couldn’t understand any words, but still it was there. The breathing of the stag, the scraping sound of his hooves on the ground: it followed him like a ghost.

Leaving the highway he reached less crowded roads. He kept telling himself that he’d be back soon and then everything would be alright again. He and Hannibal would prepare some food together, as proper cooking obviously wasn’t possible in that shack, and then lengthily talk through their further plans. Together they were safe and the stag would remain in the forest.

With his head full of swirling thoughts and a thin layer of fog still covering the streets Will didn’t react quick enough when a large dark SUV appeared out of nowhere and crashed into the side of his car with a slam. The force of the collision was merciless. It pushed the car over the entire street and into the ditch where it came to a halt, lying on its side.

Will was jammed in between the front seat and the steering wheel, not able to move, and he felt an excruciating pain starting from his head and expanding over the whole length of his left side. Something wet was dripping from his temple onto his trousers and through blurred vision he could identify it as blood. He felt incredibly dizzy and sick. Everything seemed to be upside-down and the edges of the steering wheel pressing into his chest made it really painful to breathe. With his one free hand he tried to unfix the seatbelt, which was incising into his throat and managed to turn off the still stuttering engine.

When the car finally silenced, Will let his head sink down onto the top of the steering wheel as he began to slip in and out of consciousness. Reality began to mix with scenes from his nightmares, this time without the stag turning up. Just those pictures of shadows flitting around and bleeding clocks.

In the corner of his eye he perceived the contours of a person standing right next to the car. And even though Will was deeply in a daze he still could tell that this person was really there, watching him suffer.

A pale hand appeared, reached through the broken window of the car and touched his neck, feeling his pulse. Shortly afterwards the rest of the man became visible as he knelt down by the side of the driver’s door and observed Wills slumped figure, superficially checking for bruises. When Will was capable of lifting his head a bit, he could finally see the other’s face. It was Tristan.

He looked a bit messed-up himself, his hair unkempt and still wearing the blood-stained suit he’d worn the evening before. But his eyes were of a fiery glow and with his teeth pressed together he hissed at Will:

“Look who’s here! Steven, isn’t it? Sorry if I’m wrong, you see, I’m not very good with names. They are so irritating sometimes, aren’t they? And ‘Steven’; that is so totally … average a name one does easily forget it. Don’t you think…”

He grasped the handle of the car door and with a strong pull he jerked it open, leaning into the car to get a firm grip on Will’s chin. Firm and brutal, just like his handshakes.

“Don’t you think another name would suit you better?”, he spit at Will, his lips so close to his ear that they almost touched it.

“Something that represents your inner warrior. You are a warrior, aren’t you? So what about William, hmm?”, he accentuated the name, spitting out every letter in disgust. “Did you know it meant warrior?  And also you look like a William, you really do. You know, a bit like the one that is shown on TV now and then. The ally of that cannibalistic serial killer that escaped the police in America about a year ago. Yes, you totally look like him! I noticed that similarity right the first moment I saw you. Funny, isn’t it? You see someone on TV, someone that you keep thinking about again and again, because he looks so harmless and is yet so dangerous, and suddenly you begin to see him everywhere, in every new person you meet. Makes you kind of paranoid.”

He roughly turned Will’s head to the side, which sent a stinging pain down Will’s spine and the thin bloodstream seeping out of the wound on his forehead became thicker. Tristan looked him straight in the eye.

“I’m afraid you can’t stay here. Look at you, you’re bleeding! What would your husband say if he found you here? What would he do to me if he saw me standing right next to this horrible scene I’ve caused? Do you think he’d help you?”

Will tried to reply, to spit right back at Tristan that Hannibal would turn **him** into a horrible scene within the blink of an eye if he were here, but he only managed to choke up a faint croaking sound.

Tristan grinned at him wickedly.

“It’s alright, don’t speak! I’ll help you out of there and then you come with me. I’d really love to finish that discussion we had at the dinner table yesterday. I can remember that it had been fascinating stuff, but somehow I seem to have passed out in the course of the evening. Strange, but it was probably the wine. It often makes me a bit dizzy.”

He grabbed Will under the arms and dragged him out of the car. Will grasped Tristan’s shoulders and tried to pull away, kicking and pushing with all the strength he had left. With a resigning sigh, Tristan let him slump down to the floor and set a foot onto his neck to keep him there.

“I’m sorry about that, but if you don’t feel like cooperating, I’m afraid I have to force you to remain still.”

He took a small brown bottle out of one pocket of his jacket and a dirty cloth out of another. Will gasped for air with his face pressed to the ground and Tristan’s foot relentlessly keeping him in place. The man opened the bottle and soaked the cloth in the fluid it contained.

“See you later, William.”, he said with a sneer and then roughly pressed the cloth onto Will’s mouth.

The smell was pungent and went straight to his head, filling up all the capacity there and turning his vision black. He fell and fell and then felt nothing anymore.

 

♠♣♥♦

 

The room in which he awoke again was dark; the only light source was a desk lamp on the floor in front of him. Jagged shadows towered at the walls, huge and eerie they stretched out over the whole length of the room, guarding him like a line of soldiers, clothed in black.

As his vision began to clear up and the sensation returned to his limbs, the dimension of the pain hit him with a ruthless fierceness. His whole torso felt sore and his spine sent waves of pain through his body with every little stir. Every time he breathed in, a sting shot through his chest. He suspected a broken rib.

When he tried to move his arms, he realized they were bound together behind the back of the chair he was sitting on. His feet were tied to the legs of the chair and even his torso was fixed to it with a tight rope. Will wanted to scream, but a piece of fabric stuffed into his mouth hindered him from doing so. It tasted bitter and dirty, but at least there didn’t seem to be more of the narcotics on it.

He let his eyes wander through the room, which was almost empty, except for the chair he sat on and a massive wooden workbench in the corner next to the only door, on which some cardboard boxes of various sizes where placed. The door was ajar, a strip of light seeping through the gap between it and the doorframe.

Will began to feel dizzy again because of the thick air and he caught a deep rattling breath in order to maintain consciousness; it was ringing out throughout the room. Just a second later, he heard steps approaching and then the door was pushed open. Tristan’s silhouette appeared on the threshold, blocking the sight into the other room. He closed the door properly behind him when he entered and with a few quick steps he’d reached Will’s side.

“Ah, there you are again!”, he hissed, danger and recklessness clearly audible in his voice. “Thought I’d have to reanimate you at some point, that stuff I gave you was sensationally effective.”

Will started moving his jaw in an attempt to spit out the cloth gagging him. Tristan realized it and bowed down beside him to look into his face.

“I see you want to say something. Let me help you there as I don’t think you’ll be able to get rid of that thing alone.” He brought one hand to Wills mouth and roughly pulled the gag out, making Will choking and gasping for air.

Tristan let the piece of cloth fall to the floor and then turned back to Will, placing his hands on the arm of the chair on each side thereby trapping Will in the middle, forcing him to look him in the face.

“What is it, Mr. Graham? Scared?”, he asked, his facial expression relaxed, but his lips as thin as strips of paper.

“What d-“, Will coughed a few times to clear his hoarse voice. “What do you want from me?”

Tristan grinned. “I’m pretty sure you know that already, don’t you? After our little dinner party yesterday – I think I made my intentions pretty clear. You are very far from home now.”

Will grimaced at him. “They didn’t catch us. Your plan failed.”

“Well, I have to admit that the plan derivates in certain points from what actually came to happen, but the aim is still in focus. In the end I’m going to get you imprisoned.”

“You’ve only caught one of us.”, Will hissed spitefully.

“Yes, the weaker one, I’m afraid.”

Will felt the anger rising in his chest, speeding up his heartbeat and heating up his skin with the blood rushing through it. Tristan turned away from him and went over to the workbench, rummaging in one of the drawers until he came back with two candles in his hands.

“But in fact that doesn’t worry me much, as I’m pretty sure that as soon as your husband learns about your unfortunate situation, he’ll turn up here very quickly.”

He attached a candle to the end of each armrest, out of reach of Will’s tightly bound hands, and lit them up with a lighter he took out of his pocket.

Will watched how the flames sprang to life with each click of the lighter and grabbed a hold of the candlewick, not letting go in their dance of light. Of course Hannibal would come for him.

There was no way he wouldn’t try to find him. They were conjoined, bound, partners in crime. They had both promised not to leave the other ever again. Not in words, but in silent agreement, confirmed by glances, occasional touch and the simple fact that they both knew, if they were to be, then they were to be together. If fate had given them the precious gift of survival after their fall into the ocean, then they’d have to share it. Fate only gives away such treasure once.

Another thought hit Will. “He’s not going to find me here. How will he know where I am?”

A fiendish expression appeared on Tristan’s face as he came closer again.

“That’s why you have to tell him where you are.”

Will frowned. “I don’t have the faintest idea.”

“Of course you don’t. But I do and I will tell you. “

He pulled a mobile phone out of his pocket and began typing in a number.

“Your dear husband was so kind as to give me his number when we first met. That makes everything a lot easier, don’t you think? I’m pretty sure he’s already expecting you to call as it’s been almost 4 hours since I dragged you out of that wrecked car. He must be worried by now.”

Will snorted and started kicking against the legs of the chair. Tristan raised his eyes from the screen.

“Please stop that, it’s not going to help you. Also it is pretty impolite, as I’ve been actually quite kind to you up to now. – Which means it’s gonna get worse.”, he added.

He pressed the phone to Will’s ear and Will could hear the beeping sound of it dialing in.

“You talk and I give you instructions about what to say, understood?”, Tristan placed his free hand on Wills throat and squeezed slightly.

Will’s pupils widened at the pressure, but he shook his head vehemently.

“Yes you will!”, Tristan said forcefully. “I need him to know that you are still alive. Not sure if he’s gonna come for you if he thinks you’re dead. I need you both alive.”

On the other end of the line Will could hear someone picking up the phone.

“ _Who is it?”_ It was Hannibal’s voice.

Will pressed his lips firmly together and shook his head again. He wasn’t going to decoy him into a trap that Tristan most certainly had thoroughly prepared. Whatever those boxes on the workbench contained, he was sure it was useful to hurt people. Hannibal was unarmed, unprepared of what was awaiting him, he wasn’t even in possession of a car to come here and Will didn’t want to put him at risk by leaving him no choice but to use public transportation. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t bring himself to bow to Tristan’s commands.

“ _Hello?”_

“Say something!”, Tristan growled into his other ear and the grip on his neck tightened, which made Will choke silently.

“ _Will, is that you?”_ Hannibal sounded terribly concerned.

Will squinted his eyes together, every muscle of his body strained.

“SAY SOMETHING!” Tristan shouted at him furiously and kicked against the chair, making it tumble over backwards. Will crashed onto the floor, still enchained, and the liquid candle wax poured over his arms, burning his skin and forcing a bloodcurling scream out of him.

“ _Will!”_

“H—Hannibal?”, Will cawed.

“ _What is happening? Where are you?”,_ Hannibal’s voice was trembling.

Tristan set one foot on Will’s throat and made him gasp for air again.

“You will now tell him exactly what I tell you.”

Then he gave Will the directions to their location, which he passed on to Hannibal. It was silent on the other end of the line, but Will could hear the faint scratching of a pen on paper as Hannibal was noting down the instructions.

When he was finished, Tristan increased the pressure on his throat once more so that Will began to choke, before he picked up the phone again himself.

“Dr. Lecter I’m pretty sure you understand the seriousness of this. It would be a shame if the police found your beautiful husband not-so-much-alive later. I can assure you I’m not joking on this matter.”

“ _I understand.”_ Will heard Hannibal reply.

“And certainly I don’t have to remind you to come alone.”

Then Tristan hung up and released Will’s throat from the pressure.

“So now we wait.”, he said, calm again. “I’m confident he won’t let you down. He won’t leave you alone, like you two left me alone in that storm. Boisterous weather it was! Grim wind and then of course the thunderbolts! It took me three hours to get back to civilization again! How very, very rude of you to kick your guest out like that! For that alone I should hand you over to the FBI.”

Tears were gathering in the corners of Will’s eyes, then escaping, as he squinted once more, running down his cheeks and into his auricles.

The candle wax was still dripping onto his arms in a steady pace, but he didn’t feel it anymore, for his skin was already red and burned there.

Tristan stood by the door. “I’m going to await him outside. You stay here! You haven’t got a chance to escape anyway.”

Then he stepped out and slammed the door behind him, leaving Will to his pain in the claws of darkness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My poor Will, I'm so sorry you have to endure all this pain! But there is someone coming for you, I promise!
> 
> As usual, I'd love to hear what you think. :)


	6. But all the same, together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay of this chapter! Real life is pretty stressful at the moment, leaving me little time to write.  
> However, we draw to a close here! :)  
> Actually this was supposed to be the last chapter, but I came up with some more little ideas and so now there will be one more chapter to come. ;)  
> I also have to warn you that this one is going to be quite bloody and violent. Nothing that you haven't seen in the show anyway, but still: Take care, okay? :)

**Chapter 6**

**But all the same, together**

 

Time was lost and Will was lost in it. The candle wax had cooled down and hardened again, not dripping onto his arm anymore. Without this little rhythm, that had sent out tiny bites of pain through his body, teasing like needles, he’d lost the feeling about how long he’d actually been waiting. His back felt numb and sore, pressed to the hard rods of the back of the chair. Every breath ended in a sting , for his rib was still broken and he was lying there very uncomfortably. His mouth felt furry, he could still taste the pungence of the narcotic on his tongue, mixed with the saltiness of his own tears that had run dry by then. Their trace on his face had dried up, leaving a stretched feeling on the skin of his cheeks. The sound of his own breathing was the only thing that felt real to him in the dark. This and the cold grip of fear, that kept hold of his intestines, squeezed his heart so that he heard the throbbing pulse resounding in his ears. He tried to focus on that instead as an orientation for time passing, but the rhythm faltered all the time and listening made him feel dizzy very soon.

Why wasn’t he coming? Why wasn’t Hannibal there yet? It must have been more than an hour now since he’d made that call and Tristan couldn’t have brought him that far away. What would be the point of that? He had to ensure that Hannibal could find him, or his plan would fail. Also, Tristan’s car got pretty damaged in that accident as well, as far as Will could tell; he couldn’t have come far with that either. They weren’t hundreds of miles away, they were within short distance of the site of the accident, hopefully. And Hannibal would come, he had to come.

Will felt exhausted and weary and he closed his eyes, trying to doze off for a moment, but his harried body wouldn’t let him. A line from an aria of _Turandot_ came to his mind again.

_Nessun dorma, nessun dorma. Tu pure, o principessa, nella tua fredda stanza._

Nobody shall sleep! Nobody shall sleep! Not even you, oh princess, in your cold chamber.

He remembered Hannibal translating the whole lyrics for him, but he only could recall that one line. Repeating it over and over again in his head suddenly brought back the memory of the rest of the opera’s plot: As the princess Turandot is under pressure of having to work out Kalaf’s name until the next dawn, she sends out an order that prohibits all her people from sleeping that night and instead commands them to help her find the solution to Kalaf’s riddle. Some of her soldiers finally manage to capture the slave girl Liù, who works for Kalaf and is herself secretly in love with him, and they press her under the threat of torture to tell them the name. She refuses, for her lover’s sake, and eventually kills herself with a dagger, taking her knowledge to her grave. Through that act, Turandot finally realizes that it is love that gives people the strength to withstand any cruelty and when Kalaf appears again and passionately kisses her, she discovers her own love for him, too. And then they get married and everything’s fine.

“That is the ending?!”, Will had asked Hannibal afterwards. “I’m sorry to spoil your love for the opera, but honestly, this is bullshit! No love story ends like that! After all that she has done to him, he should hate her to the bone! She even made the poor slave girl kill herself! She doesn’t deserve him! Also, he’s being an idiot getting back to her!”

Hannibal had smirked at this. “You must know, dear Will, that opera often defies the nature of realistic stories for the sake of the drama. People love a dark and bloody love story with utterly odious characters, it makes them feel better about themselves. But anyhow, do you really think that love stories like that don’t actually occur? People who are clearly bad for each other falling in love? I personally don’t think the idea is that farfetched.”

“The concept is ridiculous!”, Will had replied. “He’s been so clever solving all her riddles, how could he fall for her at the end?...” On and on he’d blathered about the lack of logic and Hannibal had worn his smug grin the whole time, not answering him back. Only hours later, when Will had been sitting in their living room alone, the subliminal hint suddenly became clear to him. Hannibal hadn’t been talking about the opera.

Recalling that dialogue made Will puff out a short giggle that sent a twinge through his torso, realizing that in this analogy, Hannibal actually assumed the role of the heartless princess. He would not like to hear about that comparison, Will would tell him all the same. If they ever were to be together and free again.

The very moment Will had come to this conclusion, the door sprang open again and Tristan stepped in. Alone.

Will’s heart slowed down for a bit, assuming that if Hannibal had already arrived, Tristan would show him in now, wouldn’t he? But what that meant was, that he still wasn’t there. Why did it take him so long to come here?

Tristan looked a bit disheveled, as if he’d just returned from a long walk outside. His hair was messy and glistered damply in the pale light that a lamp in the other room provided. Had he been waiting outside in the rain? Was it raining again? Will couldn’t tell, for the room didn’t have any windows, but listening carefully, it was possible that it had started drizzling again. There was a second storm forecast for the night.

“Nasty it is outside! Your dear husband keeps me waiting for quite a time, hmm? Maybe he won’t come for you after all.”

He smirked viciously at Will, but his voice wasn’t altogether steady. Something was going wrong in his plan.

“He will come!” It was more a declaration to himself than to Tristan. “I told him the address and he will come and when he does you stand no chance of surviving!”, Will’s voice was but a whisper, all the same drenched in all his disgust and fury.

“Don’t underestimate me or the turns this matter will take. You aren’t dealing with a local theater director here who’s in need of some cash and therefore hunting FBI wanted criminals in his free time. You are dealing with a man of the same caliber as you.”, Tristan sounded dangerous now, he approached Will and with one confident movement, he propped the chair upright again. Then he began circling around Will as he spoke, like a lion does around a wounded sheep. He switched the small lamp on again when he passed by, filling the room with icy light again.

“Who are you?”, Will hissed, angry, but now also confused.

Tristan laughed silently. “You will learn soon enough. For now let’s say our dear friend Jack Crawford will soon owe me an enormous favour.”

Wills eyes widened in shock. “You know Jack Crawford?”

“Better than you do, I’d say. He always spoke so enthusiastically about you, you were his big hope, you know? Will Graham, always the hero of the day, no crime scene too confusing for him, no criminal mind too insane to understand, that’s just a selection of the compliments he paid you. You made him proud, very proud. Until you suddenly didn’t anymore. What a shame! Such a waste of talent for the FBI! But well, then the FBI wastes talents all the time. Letting them down as soon as they are too mentally damaged to be of any use to them anymore.”

 The last sentence revealed a hint of sadness in his tone of voice, in which Will suddenly detected the truth.

“You worked for them, too!”, he whispered astonished.

“I did. Years ago.”, Tristan admitted, slowing down his pacing and finally stopping in front of Will to look him in the eye. “I was the best of my year. Very empathetically gifted, just like you. They would put me in a special position, make me feel valuable, my talents appreciated, I helped them solve quite a few cases and Jack was always proud of me. Funny enough he said very similar things about me like he did about you.”

Will knew he had to keep Tristan talking; thereby he could avert his focus from preparing a trap for Hannibal. His eyes wandered to the door behind Tristan, but there was still no sign of another person arriving. He was hoping so much the police weren’t on their way already.

Tristan began pacing again.

“Talented, extraordinary, amazingly gifted… He praised me to the skies! Fool as I was I fell for it. Believed they had arranged a place for me in their world.” He stopped by the workbench and opened one of the cardboard boxes, taking out a gun and a Taser, observing both devices carefully.

“And then they betrayed you”, Will concluded, constantly keeping an eye on the door, pining for a sign of life from Hannibal.

Making a grimace, Tristan turned his attention back to him.

“Obviously!”, he spit out “They are a wolf pack! That’s what they are! One just in anticipation of tearing apart and devouring the other. It’s not a place for honour and honesty. Your persona isn’t worth a penny to them. They just want your abilities, your strength, your whole devotion and they swallow it all down until you can give no more and then you are thrown away. Forced to start a new life abroad in a job that could never completely fulfill you, now that you’ve caught a glimpse of what you could have been. “

Will began to understand why Tristan was so eager to get him and Hannibal caught. If he was able to do that, he’d be the person who helped to imprison the very two people Jack Crawford wanted to lay his hands on at any price. Oh yes, Jack would be so proud and Tristan would have restored his reputation forever. Piteous man!

Tristan took some ammunition for the gun out of another box and began loading the weapon.

_Keep him talking, keep him talking! Distract him! He mustn’t be allowed to proceed_! Will kept telling himself.

“What happened to you that they kicked you out?”, he asked.

“They didn’t kick me out.”, Tristan replied, now arming the gun and placing it carefully on the workbench again, the barrel pointing in Wills direction.

“You resigned then?”, he went on presuming.

“I retired.”, the other corrected him. “I was only thirty-nine. That’s just about how old you are, right? I was damaged through and through. Migraine, nervous convulsions, nightmares, depression, in the end I had to take an awful amount of pills every day, coloured in all different shades of the rainbow. There was no way I could have stayed. The job has broken me. Just like it broke you and like it will break every single one that comes after us. Their latest catch is a woman, I think. Starling is the name. She won’t survive it long either.”

Will strained against the ropes once more. A helpless attempt, but at least it brought Tristan’s attention back to him.

“Of what use is that, Mr. Graham? I worked for the FBI, I know how to properly tie up somebody so that he can’t free himself. Don’t even try, you’re just hurting yourself.”

Will tried once more, all his nerves responded by shooting pain from his spine to the tips of his fingers and toes.

Tristan sighed and cocked his head. “Look at you, so willing to fight, are you? But there is no point in that. No fight is going to take place here. This is a losing game for you, I promise. You still think he’ll come for you, right? Well, he won’t, because in the end, you aren’t worth a penny to him either. He is one of the wolves, probably the most dangerous one.”

Will shook his head vehemently. “No, you are wrong! You have no idea what this is all about. You wouldn’t stand a chance against the two of us together!” He practically screamed now.

“No.”, Tristan replied calmly. “I probably would not. But that doesn’t matter, as I don’t intend to stand up to the two of you together.”

He grabbed the gun and the Taser and made for the door.

And then suddenly the scales fell from Will’s eyes.

“You know he won’t come here, because you didn’t tell him to.”, he said, his voice slightly trembling from nervousness, but his words firm. “Whatever address you gave him, it won’t lead him to me. You’ve set up an extra trap for him, so you could catch us separately.”

A broad smile appeared on Tristan’s face.

“Clever one, you really are hard to fool! The FBI apparently made no mistake in hiring you. Of course I intended to catch you separately, what a fool would I be if I didn’t? Trying to overpower Hannibal Lecter and his skilled companion at the same time, that is a venture I don’t deceive myself in being up to. But don’t you worry, I’ve set a very thoroughly planned snare for him and very soon the two of you will be united again. Divided by prison bars, of course, but maybe they will let you use the same bathroom.” He winked at Will, revelling in his own smugness.

He had his back turned on the door and therefore he unfortunately could not see the figure making an appearance on the threshold until the shadow it casted covered Tristan’s own. Tristan froze as he felt someone standing right behind him. Even with the light in his back, Will could identify the intruder. And he was pleased with his detection.

“Good evening, Tristan.”

Hannibal’s voice was hoarse, but calm as usual. It was now that Will realized he had never heard him yell, not even in his angriest moments. He wondered what it would be like. Hannibal’s composure alone was frightening enough most of the time, he couldn’t imagine him flipping out would serve a better purpose on that. Apart from that, he couldn’t even come up with any situation that would make for such a behaviour. If a horrifying state like their current one didn’t, then nothing else would.

Tristan still hadn’t moved, nor said a word. The grip on the gun in his hand tightened and he pressed his lips together, every muscle strained.

Instead of turning around to face the man at the door, he abruptly raised his arm and pointed the gun at Wills head, his eyes cold and determined.

“Not one more step!”, he stated with a trembling voice, his words addressed to the man behind him. “If you move even an inch I swear to you, I will turn your husband into a sieve. The gun is loaded with live ammunition!”

“I’m sure it is.” Hannibal replied, looking over Tristan’s shoulder and straight into Will’s eyes. Then he nodded slightly. _Everything will be fine._

Some more seconds were ticking by during which nobody stirred. Then suddenly Hannibal jumped forward. But instead of attacking Tristan or at least taking his gun away, he slammed the door behind him shut, then hurried for the power socket and swiftly unplugged the lamp.

The room fell instantly dark, still Will shut his eyes and compressed his lips, awaiting a load of bullets piercing through him at any moment. He heard how Hannibal lunged at Tristan and attacked him, he heard the two men gasping in their frenzy. One of them panting for air as the other tried to suppress a cry of exhaustion when tightening his grip round the others throat.

There was no sign of who was who. They were just two beasts, trapped in their death grips. The scratching of soles over the floor, sharp and brutal, like the stag’s hooves. Cracking sounds, like breaking bones, like the stag’s antlers, when one of them was thrown against a wall. _The wolf pack_ , their rivalry, their bitterness, that was what made the stag age. Will knew now, why he’d seen the creature again. It had been a warning. This was a threat on their lives and thereby a threat on the stag’s life, too.

But all he could do was grab hold of the chair he was sitting on and inwardly plead for Hannibal to win.

A moment later the noise of the fighting ceased and Will heard someone’s steps approaching, coming to a halt right behind him. Even in the utter darkness he could somehow sense it was Hannibal.

“Don’t move until I tell you to!”, he whispered almost inaudibly into Will’s ear.

Then there was a sharp slash and suddenly the rope fell off Will’s arms and he felt the blood streaming into his arms again. His hands stopped shaking.

Another slash and his legs were free. One last and he almost tumbled forward as his torso disengaged from the strings. Hannibal’s firm hand on his shoulder held him back and pressed him onto the chair once more.

“Stay!”

Another pair of feet came rushing towards them, but ran past, obviously befuddled by the darkness and exhaustion of the fight. He heard Tristan stumble, but he didn’t fall. He just stopped.

Where was the Taser? Why didn’t he make use of it, now that Will was unbound and Hannibal apparently armed with a knife? The gun was of no avail in this darkness. Except…

A shot.

Another.

And one more.

They seemed to come from all directions at once, as their echo was thrown back between the stone walls of the narrow cellar. When the noise faded, Will felt frozen. He dared not to stir, afraid that suddenly the pain would start and there would be blood everywhere again. The strange desire of being tied up again just to feel safe rushed over him and immediately fled again, leaving him numb and slack.

But there was no pain coming, apart from the one that was already there, and Will carefully began to breathe again, when he heard Hannibal silently moan by his side. He was hit.

“Will…”, his voice was hoarse and drenched in pain “he’s behind us. Now!”

The next few seconds were all a blur. Will only remembered storming, revenging, ripping. No one was human anymore. They were all beasts, the air was all red and his claws all sharp. Flesh fell into his hands and he tore it into pieces, drinking in the coppery tang, riding the wave of adrenalin that pumped through him, taking all his breath and setting fire to his veins.

Of course Tristan stood no chance against the wolf pack. Not if it hunted with the stag by its side.

When the flames had burned down, leaving an ashen feeling of expiration behind in his lungs, he became aware of the mess he’d made. The creature he’d struggled with was dead, no doubt. His own arms, his legs, his mouth: all was covered in Tristan’s blood, black in black in the saturnine room.

_Hannibal._

Will was completely disorientated by his ecstasy, blindly groping for the walls on either side and then feeling his way towards the door, where he fumbled the plug of the lamp into the socket again. It was quite a task, as his hands were now shaking uncontrollably, but he finally managed to plug it in and the light flickered on again.

Oh hell, it was a mess!

The room looked like the leftover of a revolt in a slaughterhouse. The floor was covered in blood, puddles of it shimmering in a luscious scarlet. There wasn’t much left of Tristan’s body, at least not much that could be identified as the remains of a human body. His face was torn in half, his torso bloomed open and the most of his guts were spread around it on the floor. One of his hands still kept a loose hold of the Taser, the gun lay at the other end of the room.

In the middle of all this Hannibal was sitting, the upper part of his body propped up against the legs of the chair, his eyes closed and both of his hands clenched around his left thigh, out of which a constant bloodstream seeped through the fabric of his trousers.

Will was by his side in an instant, pushing Hannibal’s hands away to inspect the wound. The bullet had gone right through, leaving a clear hole. It was bleeding badly, but the bone itself wasn't hit and it would heal fully, given enough time and care.

He cradled Hannibal’s face in his hands, smearing Tristan’s blood over his chin. Hannibal’s eyes flickered open. There was pain in them, but there was also warm, golden pride.

“You defeated him. Victorious as always.”

Will smiled softly. “We defeated him together.”

Hannibal leaned his forehead against Will’s, each drowning in the other’s eyes.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your aid in the end, like I did back then, when we fought the dragon together.”, he whispered.

“It’s alright, I did fine on my own.”

Hannibal drew a smile. “Indeed, you did. I do admire your work, my dear Will.”

He lifted one hand from his knee and rested it on Will’s cheek, gently stroking it with his thumb.

“We will create many more masterpieces like this in the future. Together.”, he said.

Will closed his eyes. Another breath was shared between them as they both tilted their heads for their lips to finally find each other. The kiss tasted like the blood that wasn’t theirs, but they still got lost in it quickly. It was a new discovery on familiar territory. It was filled with a gentle heat that drove them on and on, deeper and deeper into the sensation. It bloomed in a pure bouquet, salty and sweet at the same time. Will felt his bloodlust crawling back into its cave, a welcome feeling of home taking its place instead.

Suddenly Hannibal drew back, hissing in pain, and Will was pulled back into reality. He unfastened his belt and wrapped it around Hannibal’s thigh above the wound to staunch the flow of blood; then he rose to his feet, pulling Hannibal with him.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here!”

The other moaned when he leaned on his harmed leg, but Will coiled an arm around his waist to stabilize him, trying not to further damage his own broken rib at the same time. They both limped out of the room together; injured, but their battle won.

On the threshold Hannibal stopped and turned around to observe the bloodbath behind them once more, undoubtedly saving the picture for his mind palace.

Will watched him taking in every piece of the artwork that presented itself before his eyes. He finally felt proud, too. This was the last step in his own becoming, his bloody, feverish birth. He’d torn himself out of the womb. He’d drawn his first breath and felt strong enough for his first scream. But that was to come later.

“This is our design.”, he said, smiling at his companion.

Hannibal turned back at him and returned the smile.

“From now on, everything will be.”

 

♠♣♥♦

_As good a day as any,_

_As dark a night as many,_

_To scatter and regather,_

_To fall and crash and shatter,_

_Through storms and boisterous weather,_

_But all the same, together._

 

_This is our design._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Help! I can't stop torturing my characters! :D  
> The main story ends here, but there are still some open questions, so the next chapter will be more like an epilogue.
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated! And thanks again to everyone who commented so far! It's making me very happy to hear from you! :)


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! I did it! I finally completed my first multi-chapter Hannigram-fic! :D  
> Writing this was such fun and I want to thank again everyone who commented or gave me kudos. It made me happy to see that my work was appreciated. And thanks for conniving at the numerous grammar mistakes, which this fic doubtlessly contained. ;)  
> Most of all I want to thank [Mischel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mischel/pseuds/Mischel), whose kind and generous comments kept me motivated. This chapter is especially for you ;)

**Epilogue**

When stepping out of the basement, his arms around Hannibal’s waist, Will was astonished by the location of the place where he’d been kept by Tristan: It was a small cottage, similar in its wretchedness to the one they’d fled to. It sat on a small hill, surrounded by a ragged garden and near the road where two wreckages of cars lay terribly damaged in the ditch.

Of course, Tristan had wanted to catch him here, not at the supermarket, where he had most certainly been watching him already. Here, were he’d already prepared a vault for him to rot in, the accident was supposed to happen. And he’d almost succeeded in his plans, had there not been one of his bad character traits: illimitable hubris. How could he think he’d be up to a fight, came it down to take place between the three of them. How could Tristan honestly consider a scenario to happen, where Hannibal would not be eager at Will’s side and Will at his when they were facing an enemy together? They were a whole force now. Will had tasted blood, it had tasted great. Just like he remembered it to taste. Victory, power, satisfaction, his one true becoming. He didn’t wonder at Hannibal’s exceptional taste in food anymore. Once one had revelled in tasting crimson blood, there was nothing alike in the world. Will realised his thoughts made him sound like a vampire and inwardly smiled about the obvious anachronism of their story, as he wondered how perfectly they would have fit into the 18th or 19th century. They would have been the heroes of dark fairytales, those that were told to naughty kids, those that made them hide under their blanket at night, frightened and at the same time excited. They would have been glorious monsters. They would have and they were to be.

Hannibal had wanted to stop by the site of the car crash, but Will hurried him along, pointing out the continuing blood loss of his leg and also the fact that running away in their current state was sheer impossible.

“So where to now?” Will asked, panting and still exhausted from the fight.

Hannibal smiled. “We’re going back to the shack.”

“Oh god, please tell me you didn’t actually plan to make this sentence rhyme,” Will replied, his face showing pain from the twinge in his broken ribcage.

Without further response Hannibal limped on, putting as little weight on Will as he could. Down the road they went and it wasn’t for more than a few hundred metres when Will was thunderstruck by the familiarity of their surroundings. Just in bare sight of them, their little hiding place sat disfiguringly in the landscape. He had been so close to “home”! Hardly surprising Hannibal had been able to cover the distance by foot. Why had it taken him so long to come though? Will realised this was hardly the appropriate time to ask that question, but it bothered him all the same.

Pushing the door open with his shoulder and dragging a heavy breathing Hannibal with him, Will entered the shack. As careful as possible, he positioned his companion on the couch, the injured leg draped over the backrest to reduce the bleeding. Hannibal moaned in pain, his teeth and fists clenched as Will unbuttoned his trousers and slid them down to his ankles, uncovering the wound.

“It looks more horrible than it is,” Will confirmed, having enough unpleasant experience with gunshot wounds himself to be able to judge their severity.

“Do you have something here to treat it medically? Like bandages or something?”

“In the car,” Hannibal hissed, enduring the pain as he attempted to move his leg into a more comfortable position.

“Don’t. Move.” Will grabbed his ankle to hold him still. “I’ll go and get them.”

“Get the groceries as well!” Hannibal called after him, when Will was already out the door. “Or I shall starve before I bleed to death.”

Will turned on his heel and stuck his head in at the door. “Don’t be silly! This would be a highly inappropriate ending to this. You have survived worse.”

Hannibal smiled at that. “Indeed, but I hate to be hungry.”

Will smiled back at him. “I know.”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

Later they sat together again, side by side, the blanket spread out over both of their laps and the armrests of the couch. Will had retrieved the groceries and a small medical kit from the car, attended thoroughly to Hannibal’s wound and even managed to light a fire, which sizzled sweetly and peacefully in front of them now.

Will felt satisfied, _sated_. The stag was gone, Tristan was dead, the rush of adrenalin in his veins had calmed down and the vegetable stew he’d prepared for Hannibal and himself, for his companion wasn’t in a condition to cook, warmed him from the inside. Hannibal sat next to him and contentedly peeled the pomegranate.

“We forgot the champagne,” Will reminded him “to drink to our anniversary.”

Hannibal smiled and broke the fruit in half, careful not to squirt the red juice all over the blanket. The memory of a dinner at Hannibal’s house in Baltimore came to Will’s mind. There had been pomegranates, too; for decorative use only. He couldn’t remember what exactly Hannibal had served that evening (or rather: who), but it had been the pomegranates that had caught his eye on the table. They had looked artistic, deliberately broken to pieces, their juice accentuating the red colour of the meat. The seeds had reminded him of the alveoli of the lungs. Hadn’t it been lungs that Hannibal had served?

He took one of the halves that Hannibal offered to him and began podding the seeds. They tasted delicious.

“I will buy us the finest champagne as soon as we find ourselves a new accommodation, preferably one without lice and mice.”

Will frowned in annoyance. “Honestly, stop that rhyming thing. It’s ridiculous!”

He raised a smirk from Hannibal, who turned his focus back to the fire, getting mesmerized by its round dance and quiet sizzling.

After a while Will finally asked the question that had troubled him since their escape from Tristan’s trap earlier that day:

“How did you know where to find me? Tristan gave you the wrong address; he intended to catch us separately.”

Hannibal’s expression was unreadable, but he seemed somehow amused about Will’s question.

“You weren’t exactly far away. I actually didn’t know, I just made my conclusions after discovering the scene of the car crash. He couldn’t have brought you far away, as you were probably resisting his attempts to kidnap you with all your force. And even if you were unconscious; it is pretty improbable that he carried you away just like that. And I must know, as I did it myself once.”

“So it was merely a lucky guess?” Will asked in disbelief.

“Not entirely.” There was a small smile lingering in his facial features. “I definitely knew where NOT to look for you, namely the exact location he sent me to.”

Will frowned. “What made you so sure?”

“Simply the fact that I was already there.”

He had to think that through for a moment. Tristan had kept him at one place and sent Hannibal to another, where a trap lay awaiting him. And Hannibal saw the lie immediately, because he was already...oh.

Hannibal smile widened when he discovered the comprehending expression on Will’s face.

“Shall we take a look at the basement?”

 

♠♣♥♦

 

It was quite a piece of labour to get Hannibal downstairs to the basement of the house, but with one arm around Will’s shoulder and the other hand at the handrail he somehow managed to hop down the stairs, step by step.

They ended up in a short hallway at the end of which a heavy iron door awaited them ajar. Will spotted a faint stream of light pouring out of the room behind, falsely giving the impression of someone awaiting them. Hannibal and he exchanged brief glances; then they slowly approached the entrance of whatever trap Tristan had set for them.

Halfway down the hall, Hannibal stopped, “I don’t think it is wise to enter the room together. I have strong faith in Tristan’s abilities to construct efficient snares and both of us ending up in one would certainly be the most stupid thing that could happen to us now. So if you don’t mind, I intend to enter first.”

Will shook his head. “You can barely keep yourself upright and as much as I’d enjoy seeing you ending up tangled in a net or something similar, I will not risk our safety for anything of that kind. So you stay here, I go first!”

Hannibal raised his eyebrows and gave him a withering glance.

“A net? You seriously think an ex-FBI employee would prepare – “

“Just simply wait here, ok? You can follow as soon as I’ve checked if it’s safe.”

With that he left Hannibal leaning against the wall and entered the room alone.

The light source turned out to be a small window in the back of the room, the dust on the glass filtering the sunlight, turning it to pale grey on its way through. It gave Will the creeps for a moment, as he felt like being thrown back into the earlier situation again: sitting in a cold chamber, thirsting for light, the skin on his arms red and burned, a feeling of black despair. And doubt. He had doubted Hannibal would come for him. He’d let Tristan’s poisonous words sing him to sleep, hadn’t confidently believed in what now seemed to be the single self-evident truth: That no matter what menace they had to withstand, Hannibal and he were one of a kind and inseparably conjoined forever. A wolf-pack of two; stags, lions and lambs, they all were to bow to them, because they were the hunters. His earlier distrust towards Hannibal sat like a stone in his stomach, but as much as he wished to choke it out, he feared that without it he’d be too light and then he’d lose ground easily. Maybe he needed the stone to ground him, remember him of what they were. Maybe this wasn’t distrust at all, maybe this was just caution.

Apart from the lamp and a dust-covered bookshelf the room was empty. Will took a few careful steps inside, but no further danger revealed itself to him. In a way, he was disappointed. Maybe the room was the wrong one?

“It seems I’ve overestimated Tristan’s efforts to get me caught.” Hannibal’s voice resounded back from the stonewalls. He was standing on the threshold, observing the room with slight amusement.

“I told you to wait outside!” Will snorted back at him.

Without responding Hannibal limped in and stood by Will’s side. Letting his glance wander over the dirty floor and up the walls, where various driven in nails gave the implication that the room had been used as a hobby room once.

“I must say, I’m a bit disappointed of his design,” he commented “but in a way I expected something like that. He was so sure he’d be here before me; he wanted to await me, to meet me eye to eye. His urge to overpower me himself was stronger than his carefulness. These things always cost their price.”

Will’s eyes drifted through the emptiness of the room. “And when it became clear to him that you wouldn’t come, he hurried back, afraid you might have released me. This was a terrible plan right from the beginning.”

“Oh, he didn’t plan this.” Hannibal replied “He merely took his chances as they opened themselves up before him. The ability to plan is a quality only granted those of sanity.”

Will looked at him in surprise. “You think him insane?”

“I think it insane to believe he could overwhelm us both on his own, but then again, he was a very desperate man.”

“So were you once.”

Hannibal flashed a smile at this. “I’m not in a position to claim total sanity for me either, but I never was driven by such a pathetic attitude as despair alone.”

“What did drive you then?”

Will watched as the other took one of his hands into his own and interlaced their fingers

“The prospect of companionship, primarily.”

Will raised his head to make their eyes meet, reading the heaviness of this confession in Hannibal’s eyes.

“So it’s a companionship then, what we have.” he said.

“It is whatever you want it to be, Will. It is a relationship based on trust and care and mutual pursuit to create the best of all worlds for each other. At least that’s what it is for me, and if you see it the same way I don’t see the need in labelling it.”

“I still find it difficult to trust you sometimes,” Will confessed “and I don’t find myself worthy of unconditional trust either. It is the way we are, what we did to each other in the past that has shaped us. But the past is over and though I will never get rid of the memories, I’m gaining power over them. I won’t let them come in the way I’ve chosen to take, the one I’ll walk side by side with you.”

Hannibal nodded, understanding. “One day, I hope we’ll be able to bury all these blood-stained memories together and turn to a new page.”

Will let out a small laughter. “I believe our memories will always be blood-stained. Just the origin of the blood, that is what is supposed to change.”

Hannibal’s smile was full of pride and warmth now. “I’m looking forward to seeing you create more beautiful designs like you did today.”

“Well, I didn’t have time to display him properly.” It bothered Will in some way.

“That makes me just even more curious about what the future will bring.”

With that, Hannibal wrapped his arm around Will’s waist and nodded towards the door. “Let us get upstairs again. I’m afraid we’ll have to leave this wretched place soon, as the police are undoubtedly still looking for us and we can’t know for sure if Tristan let them in on his intentions or not.”

“We don’t have a car anymore,” Will reminded him “I can’t see how we’ll be able to manage a second escape.”

Hannibal grinned. “Well, where there’s a Will there’s a way.”

“Enough of those stupid puns for today! Or I will retract everything I’ve said earlier.” Will retorted, but he couldn’t help smiling all the same.

“For now, we shall spend the night here and leave tomorrow in the early hours of morning. There isn’t much to pack and I’m in possession of enough fortune to ensure a safe getaway for us. Let’s hope this shack proves itself able to weather one more storm, which I’ve heard is about to arrive one hour from now. We should check for the windows, I suggest.”

Together they made their way upstairs again, locked the door and barricaded the windows as good as possible, before lying down on the couch again, keeping themselves occupied with each other while they waited for the storm to wash over them once more.

It didn’t. The night was peaceful and silent, and when the morning came and fresh sunlight awoke the lands again, they were both in blissful anticipation of the beautiful times that were to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tadaaa, it's done! ;)  
> I probably won't publish new works any time soon, as finals are coming up and I'm drowning in work, but I'm participating in the HannibalBigBang2016 as a writer and I'm really looking forward to it!  
> Oh, and I recently joined [Tumblr](http://cervolina.tumblr.com/)! So stop by and say Hi to me there if you like! ;)


End file.
